


dark skies and neon lights

by asael



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, minor Byleth/Edelgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28985847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asael/pseuds/asael
Summary: In a world ruled by warring megacorps, the future leader of Leicester finds evidence that there's a power moving behind the scenes. With the help of the leader of Adrestia and the missing Blaiddyd heir, Claude may be able to uncover the truth - that is, if he survives.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 44
Kudos: 102
Collections: The Three Houses AU Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome! This fic was written for the Three Houses AU Bang, and I was lucky enough to work with some amazing artists - [scoutlings](https://twitter.com/scoutlings) and [FactorialRabbit](https://twitter.com/FactorialRabbit). Please enjoy their wonderful art!! I had a great time writing this, and I hope you have just as much fun reading it. 
> 
> After the first chapter, I'll be updating every Sunday. Thank you for reading!

art by [@scoutlings](https://twitter.com/scoutlings)

“Be sure you take the time to familiarize yourself with our files.”

That was what Claude’s grandfather had said. What he’d meant, Claude knew, was that he ought to learn how to use the Leicester Conglomerate’s internal systems. He ought to learn about the companies under their umbrella, their profits and losses, which were struggling and which ought to be invested in.

But Claude knew all that. He’d known that for years - he’d learned it all in the months after he’d discovered that his mother was the daughter of the CEO of the Leicester Conglomerate, and he’d kept up ever since. Most of the information was publicly available, and what wasn’t had been easy to find. Going over it again would be a waste of his time. 

Besides, there were much more interesting things to look for now that he had full access to Leicester’s internal network.

Claude had always wondered if he could access it from the outside, but he’d never seriously tried. Most of the megacorps had security that was expensive, complicated, and tight - which wasn’t a problem for Claude, really, but it also hadn’t been worth trying to crack. Not when he’d already been pretty certain it would be offered to him openly one day. The Riegan family had been CEOs of Leicester for generations - had been integral to the joint founding, in fact - and it had never been handed down to a non-blood relative.

That wasn’t uncommon for megacorps. Nepotism was the name of the game, because you couldn’t trust anyone but at least family usually had good reason to avoid betraying you. But when the presumptive heir, Godfrey, died in a messy car accident, things had begun to look a bit dicey for the Riegans.

Luckily, Claude’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. Luckily, he’d accessed his own mother’s files, easily broke her encryption, and discovered the truth of her Riegan blood.

He’d wanted out of Almyra, he’d wanted a chance to change things, and a path had been provided for him. One DNA test and quite a bit of behind-the-scenes politicking later, here he was, all of Leicester’s files in his lap and the CEO seat his so long as he managed to avoid any unfortunate ‘accidents’ until his grandfather stepped down.

That part, Claude wasn’t worried about. He’d been dealing with that sort of thing since before he could break the most basic of firewalls. What he needed now was to know where the threats might come from. He needed information, all the things you couldn’t get from publicly available stock reports and gossip on anonymous message boards.

The sorts of things that would be buried in the massive amounts of data on the Leicester Conglomerate servers.

It was too much to dig through - Claude couldn’t have read it all in his entire lifetime. He programmed some simple bots instead, set their parameters, sent them to dig through old reports and emails and trash bins that hadn’t been emptied in months.

Then he got comfortable, made himself some coffee, and set about reading everything the bots retrieved for him.

That was another bonus of the whole ‘future CEO’ thing. An office in a gleaming high rise, personal security, and all the free coffee he could drink. Oh, there’d been plenty of free coffee in the Almyran royal palace, but it hadn’t been safe to touch - not for him. He’d had to keep his own supply, tucked away and safe in one of his little bolt-holes in the city. For all that he was sure Leicester was just as much a nest of vipers, no one had tried to poison Claude yet. Mostly they didn’t know what to make of him.

And he fully planned to coast on that until he knew who was the biggest danger.

He sipped his coffee and raked through emails. Most of it was about what he expected - Goneril Personnel Solutions (a slick name for what amounted to an elite mercenary corps) was concerned with the growing power of the Almyran regime. OrdeliaSoft was pioneering some truly impressive new datalinks. Riegan’s many business ventures were causing problems for some, including Gloucester, apparently, who had sent a few fiery emails about one of Riegan’s subsidiaries poaching one of their textile suppliers.

That piqued Claude’s interest. He’d met the old man who ran Gloucester Incorporated, and he hadn’t liked him. He’d kept a smile on his face, of course, but the man had looked down his nose at Claude. He’d clearly been displeased to see a sudden Riegan heir, and Claude would bet that was because he was the most obvious choice for a successor if none had been found.

And it seemed now that there was more than just that to take into consideration.

He considered for a moment. Gloucester surely kept some files hidden - they all did. Claude wanted a deep dive, he wanted everything, and he could probably crack their security with some work. But why go to the trouble when there was an easier way?

He grinned and tapped his screen, scrolling through the contacts until he got to the one that read _Purebred_. He tapped the call button.

“Hey, Lorenz,” Claude said, grinning as the call popped up on his viewscreen. Lorenz was frowning, as he always seemed to be when they spoke. 

“Claude,” he said. “It’s nearly midnight.” He narrowed his eyes, squinting at the room behind Claude. “Are you still at the office?”

Was it really that late? Claude glanced at the time. Huh. He’d gotten a little too caught up in his research. Oh well - in this case, that would work in his favor.

“Yeah.” Claude said, easy and casual. “My grandfather wanted me to go over our financials, you know? And everything was going great, but…” He drew it out, biting his lip as if he was embarrassed.

“What did you do this time?” Lorenz said, frowning even more severely. He was so easy. Claude had to struggle not to laugh.

“I put in my password wrong and accidentally got locked out of the database. IT’s gone home already, so they can’t reset it… I’m seriously almost done, I just need to look at your profits from last quarter. Think you could log me in?”

Lorenz sighed, a long-suffering thing. Claude had heard it before. It always made him smile. “Really, Claude? I know they advise against it, but until you’ve memorized all your passwords you simply ought to write them down. That way you wouldn’t get into trouble like this.”

“You’ve got a good point,” Claude said. He tucked that little bit of knowledge away just in case he needed it someday - Lorenz’s idea of security was questionable at best. Meanwhile, of course Claude had memorized all his passwords. He had an algorithm that made them nearly impossible to crack, and in addition to that made certain they were never anywhere anyone else could get at without some serious work. Preferably in his head.

It was basic stuff, but he guessed Lorenz had never really needed to worry about things like that. 

“I’ll help you out this time,” Lorenz said, that lofty tone in his voice, a nobleman doing some dirty upstart commoner a favor. Claude had rapidly become familiar with that, too. As the future heir to one of the largest companies under the Leicester umbrella and its soon-to-be CEO, they’d seen quite a bit of each other over the past few months. “I’ll log you in remotely. Do not forget to log out when you’re finished.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Claude said, and it was as easy as that. He’d have to work on security, really, if he was going to be the one in charge of all this someday. But for now -

For now, Lorenz’s account gave him full access to the Gloucester databases. He set his bots searching, got another cup of coffee, and settled in.

Claude had always been good at patterns and puzzles. It was what made him so good at this - breaking into someone’s system was really just a big puzzle. Half the time the solution involved exactly what he’d just done: finding the right human-shaped weakness. The rest was all coding and patience and creativity.

And a certain moral flexibility, of course.

Claude searched for all mentions of himself. Much of it was uncomplimentary, but it didn’t bother him. It wasn’t as if he expected to stumble across a plot against him - Gloucester wasn’t that stupid.

And that was why he was looking for something else as well, something much harder to put a finger on: empty spaces. Deleted files, things that should be there and weren’t. What wasn’t there could tell him almost as much as what was.

When he began to find those missing spaces, his curiosity started to grow. It was intuition more than anything - the sense that there was something big just out of sight. Claude knew better than to ignore that feeling. It had kept him alive more than once.

Slowly, he put the pieces together. There were just enough traces to finally see the shape of what was missing.

Gloucester had been in semi-regular contact with one of their competitors, the Adrestia Corporation. That wasn’t anything of note - all the megacorps were in contact with one another, trading information and resources, watching for weaknesses, waiting for a chance to strike. But there were old emails missing, emails from almost five years ago.

Had there been a deal made? Had Gloucester sold out Leicester, or one of the companies under its umbrella? If so, that was a long game to play. Adrestia hadn’t made any moves against Leicester in the past five years, as far as Claude knew. They hadn’t openly made a move against anyone.

But something was pricking at the back of his mind, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He dug deeper.

It was hard to really permanently delete anything, not unless you knew what you were doing. It was especially hard to delete traces of emails from your official company servers, which always had backups. So Claude found it relatively easy to retrieve copies of at least some of those missing emails.

It seemed like Gloucester knew enough not to send anything too dangerous from his company email, which was honestly more than Claude had expected. There was nothing incriminating, not quite, but -

There were emails between Adrestia and Gloucester, coming from a name Claude recognized. Volkhard von Arundel, long-time strategic advisor to the leaders of Adrestia - Claude hadn’t met him, but he’d seen his face on the feeds often enough.

And there was a third party, too. An outside email from a free provider - likely a throwaway address. _That_ was what really got Claude’s interest - that, and the veiled references to something being ‘completed to our satisfaction.’

It wasn’t enough to actually mean anything, but now Claude’s curiosity was piqued. He’d taught himself to break into databases and get past security systems as a way to survive - the more information he had, the safer he would be. But he’d discovered quickly that it dovetailed perfectly with his desire to know more, to learn all that he could.

He logged off Lorenz’s account. He couldn’t do the rest from here. Riegan Holdings had top of the line systems, infinitely fast connections, and elite private security - but it would be far too easy to track him, and if Claude’s intuition was correct, this might be something big.

He could be wrong. He’d been wrong before.

He didn’t think he was this time. 

  


* * *

  


Getting to his safehouse turned out to be the most tedious part. Since accepting his position as the CEO’s successor, Claude’s grandfather had insisted he have their private security forces on him at all times in case of an assassin. It was smart, Claude knew, but to him it felt stifling. He’d always been able to move freely before, and the large men in dark suits who followed him everywhere were really cramping his style.

Claude had a long history of taking care of himself, and mostly preferred that, but in this new position there were more eyes on him. He couldn’t just dismiss his security detail and walk out of the office - especially not in the middle of the night. So he let the intimidating black-clad folks call him a car, and then accompany him in that car, and then walk him to the door of the fancy high-rise he now lived in. Trying to talk them into _not_ accompanying him all the way upstairs to the ridiculous penthouse apartment his grandfather had housed him in was a trial, but as much as they were paid to be immoveable objects, Claude had spent his life learning how to be an unstoppable force.

He charmed them, and reminded them that the place had its own security force, and promised them that if someone crept in and killed him while he slept then he’d make sure they didn’t take the blame, _really_. It was exhausting, but in the end they left, entrusting Claude’s safety to the probably less well-trained and well-paid high-rise security force. After that it was easy to simply slip out one of the service entrances. He went upstairs only long enough to trade his fancy businessman costume for something more unobtrusive. He didn’t spend that much time in the penthouse normally, only stopping there to sleep from time to time.

His grandfather had placed a tracker on him during his medical screening back when they’d first met, of course, and Claude had found it ages ago. It was a boon, really - all he’d had to do was hack in, and then he could make it say he was anywhere at all. No doubt the bodyguards had access to it as well, for his ‘safety’. As long as it said he was upstairs, browsing the feeds or sleeping or doing whatever the idle rich normally did, he’d have plenty of time to do what needed to be done.

And so he did.

He’d known he’d need somewhere totally unconnected to ‘Claude von Riegan’ in order to get any real work done, and so he’d found a run-down apartment in the slums and set it up as a safehouse. It was unremarkable, one of many, down a wet and dark alleyway lit by neon signs high above. His neighbors sold designer drug knockoffs and were in and out at all hours, and that was perfect. No one would look for him here.

It wasn’t the scummiest part of the city. It was just where all the unwanted folks without dangerous dreams ended up, all the people who slid under society’s radar and wanted to keep it that way. Claude had always fit right in in those sorts of places

He had a respectable setup in that small apartment. It had nothing on Riegan tech, of course, but it was as untraceable as he could make it, and it did its job. He settled in, checking the time briefly. It was late, but since he wouldn’t be expected in the office tomorrow - it was a weekend - he could safely spend as much time as he needed here. Set up a few food deliveries to his penthouse, maybe swing by to show his face, and no one would ever know he’d been gone.

Still, what a hassle. Claude briefly let himself miss the freedom he’d had back in Almyra. He’d been able to roam at will there, the palace security long since having given up on him - those that wouldn’t have been happy to see him dead. He’d gone wherever he liked, met all kinds of people. Perhaps eventually he’d have that freedom back.

For now, though, he started to dig.

He started with the mystery email, the throwaway account that had been in contact with Gloucester. It wasn’t hard to break in, and he considered it a stroke of luck that the whole thing hadn’t been deleted. There wasn’t much there. It had clearly been set up to be used briefly and then abandoned. But it yielded more cryptic messages and more emails to access, and Claude let himself sink into the rhythm of it all.

He was good at this. He always had been. He’d been breaking into his brothers’ accounts since he was old enough to know he needed to look out for himself - since he figured out it was a lot safer if he saw them coming. It had been self-preservation at first, but then it became a hobby, even a way to relax. 

Claude wanted knowledge, wanted information. In the process of getting it, he’d made a name for himself, one that had never been traced back to a lonely young Almyran prince. And now it would help him carve out a little bit of safety for himself, maybe.

It was a couple hours later in the depths of another throwaway email account that he saw the word _Blaiddyd_ and felt a chill down his spine. Something clicked into place.

The fall of Blaiddyd Industries five years ago had been international news. Their headquarters had been attacked during an annual board meeting. Hundreds of lower-level employees had been killed and nearly every board member had been slaughtered. They’d had codes to disable the automatic defenses, and the Blaiddyd security forces had been utterly destroyed. Even now, no one knew who had commanded the force that took down the company. A tentative peace had reigned ever since, with every megacorp looking over their shoulder, wondering if they would be next.

Single assassinations were relatively normal. A murder here, a mysterious accident there - all for the sake of taking out a business rival or climbing the ranks. That was simply how things worked. But an entire megacorp wiped out in the space of a few hours?

No one had expected it. Except, apparently, whoever had been in contact with Gloucester.

_It’s been completed to our satisfaction._

Sent the day after the Blaiddyd massacre, if Claude remembered right. He felt a chill go down his spine.

Blaiddyd still existed, albeit as a bare remnant of what it once had been. Cornelia Arnim, one of the only survivors, had taken over its operations, but she seemed uninterested in attempting to restore her company to its former glory. It was a cautionary tale, a mystery that people hadn’t bothered to try to solve, whether out of fear or simple greed.

Claude still didn’t know who the emails belonged to. None of them had been signed. Gloucester’s involvement seemed peripheral at best, though Claude would have to keep an eye on him. His only real lead, it seemed, was Volkhard von Arundel - and Adrestia.

His attempts to look into Arundel didn’t turn up much. The man was too smart for that, and short of breaking into Adrestia’s servers - which Claude had started to consider - he couldn’t find anything useful. To all appearances, Arundel was simply a wealthy businessman. Powerful, certainly, but not with the kind of influence that could utterly destroy a megacorp.

There was more to this, and Claude felt certain he was on the right track. Blaiddyd’s fall had benefited Adrestia, certainly, more than any other megacorp, but they’d never claimed responsibility. If Arundel had been part of orchestrating it, wouldn’t he have made it clear that it had been done in his name? What better way to send fear through every one of your possible opponents? 

Deep in thought, Claude opened up the social media feeds. He typed in _Edelgard von Hresvelg_ , and scrolled through the endless stream of photos and articles and speculation. He hadn’t met the president of Adrestia Corporation yet. 

He could only get so much from her public appearances and the gossip that swirled around her. About his age, but she’d taken up her position a year or two before - notably after the Blaiddyd massacre. She was known to be uncompromising and had a good head for business. Under her leadership, Adrestia was doing well.

Did she know what pies Arundel seemed to have his fingers in? 

Claude glanced at the time. Late, but not too late - the clubs would still be open. He opened his contacts and tapped on the one that read _Princess_. It rang for quite awhile before the call was picked up, video popping on to fill Claude’s small room with thumping background bass. If Claude squinted, he could almost tell which club she was in - Hilda had dragged him out to most of the ones popular with the rich kid set.

“Hey you,” she said, grinning into the camera, lipstick perfect and eyes blurry. She sounded like she’d had a few drinks, or maybe snorted something shiny. “Change your mind about coming out tonight?”

“Gotta pass,” Claude said with a grin. “I’ll make it up to you. But hey, I had a question. You know Edelgard, right?”

Hilda rolled her eyes. She had to speak loudly to be heard over the club’s music, so she made a point of sighing loudly, too. “Ugh, yes. Such a buzzkill. I used to run into her at all those boring parties our parents would force us to go to. You’re _so_ lucky you missed out on all of that.”

Hilda seemed to know every company heir and rich young brat in the city. Claude had struck up a friendship with her almost immediately after arriving, and to his surprise it had turned out to be both useful _and_ fun. She was smarter and more competent than she tried to appear, and she always seemed to know every bit of apparently inconsequential gossip. Claude adored her.

“What do you know about her?” It was a more straightforward question than Claude would have asked anyone else, but this was Hilda. She was happy to serve as an information source, so long as he didn’t ask her to do any actual work. She didn’t much care about his reasons for asking.

“Besides that she doesn’t know how to have a good time? Hmm.” Hilda picked up a drink nearly the same shade of pink as her hair, taking a sip while she thought. “She became president young, so she never ended up running with any particular crowd. Too busy with work. She’s pretty serious and determined. Honestly, I don’t have any good gossip on her, she never does _anything_ scandalous. Or maybe she’s just really good at hiding it.”

So either a company president dedicated to her work, or someone really good at covering her tracks. Or maybe both. Claude thought it over.

“Did she have anything to do with the Blaiddyds?” It was a stab in the dark. Edelgard had certainly known them - all the rich families knew each other - but it felt like there had to be something more there.

Hilda blinked at him in surprise. “Oh, wow. That’s super old stuff, you know?”

Five years was an eternity in the land of capitalist billionaire gossip, Claude knew, but - “It hasn’t been _that_ long since they were around.”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant.” Hilda leaned in, just the way she would have if they’d been together in person and she had a secret. “Before that, like years before, there was this big rumor about Edelgard’s mom having an affair. With Lambert Blaiddyd.” She eyed him, almost suspicious. “Did you hear that somewhere? That’s like ancient history. Everyone stopped talking about it after, well, you know.”

Claude grinned, though all he felt in that moment was the frustration of thwarted curiosity. How did the pieces fit together? It felt like it was just out of his reach. Edelgard was connected to the Blaiddyds - so had she been involved in the massacre? Maybe out of some kind of revenge for her mother? She would have been young, but Claude knew better than to make snap judgments based on age. Or maybe her mother had been the one involved? He didn’t know. Couldn’t know.

There was really only one person who did.

“Thanks, Hilda. I don’t know, maybe I did hear it somewhere? Anyway, I owe you one.”

Hilda rolled her eyes, letting just the hint of a smile through. “Fine, whatever. I don’t care about your weird schemes, and if Edelgard’s involved, I definitely don’t want the details. But you _do_ owe me! I’m making you come out with me sometime soon. You know how much free stuff clubs will give us just to have the Leicester CEO show up?”

“I’m not the CEO yet,” Claude said, “and don’t they give you a ton of free stuff anyway? But all right. Next time you call, I’ll come.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Hilda said with a sugary smile. “Now go back to your world domination plans or whatever. I have a drink to finish and at least five hotties to dance with.” She blew him a kiss and closed the connection.

Claude sat in silence for a long moment, planning his next move. Then he opened one of his own throwaway email accounts and started typing.  


  


* * *

  


_You don’t have to come alone, but don’t bring anyone you don’t trust._

It was that line that had decided Edelgard. The rest of the anonymous email had piqued her interest - mentions of the fall of Blaiddyd Industries, a reference to some information that had been uncovered - but she hadn’t been sure what to make of it. She didn’t know how much the sender knew, or thought they knew, and her mind first went to blackmail or some kind of trap.

But Edelgard had received those sorts of messages before. There was always some kind of veiled threat, a promise that if she didn’t do what was asked she would pay in some way. Generally, Edelgard simply forwarded them on to Hubert and let him deal with it.

This one, though, felt different. It asked for only a meeting in a busy cafe - somewhere public, where the threat was minimal. It told her she could bring backup. And if the person who’d sent the email really had information about the Blaiddyds… well, Edelgard couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

And so there she was, across the street from the cafe, minutes before the requested meeting time. It wasn’t far from Adrestia’s headquarters in the business district, on the intersection of two busy streets, the area clean and well-patrolled by the private security employed by the nearby megacorps. If this person had meant Edelgard harm, she imagined they would have chosen somewhere in the lower city, the districts where security rarely stepped foot. Somewhere people could easily disappear.

But this cafe was nothing like that. In fact, she was pretty sure it was where Ferdinand picked up pastries before their meetings sometimes.

“Yellow jacket,” Byleth murmured. Edelgard’s personal bodyguard stood next to her, eyes also on the cafe. “In the back corner.”

She had sharp eyes. Edelgard could barely make out the person she was referring to, their figure obscured by the people coming in and out. “Just keep an eye on their hands while we’re in there.” It was a safe meeting place. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be planning something.

“Yes,” Byleth said. Brief and businesslike. She hadn’t needed the reminder - Edelgard felt a little foolish for saying anything at all. This was Byleth’s job. She’d foiled no less than four attempts on Edelgard’s life since Edelgard had taken the position of president. She was competent and talented, and there were few that Edelgard trusted more. 

When she’d read _don’t bring anyone you don’t trust_ , Byleth was the first person who had come to mind.

She had thought of bringing Hubert as well, but as intelligent and talented as he was, he was only passable with guns and absolutely abysmal at hand-to-hand. His skills lay elsewhere, in the computer systems that he ran and the research he oversaw. He knew about the meeting, and was tracking her position through the GPS chip in her wrist implant. If she got anything at all from this meeting, they would take it apart later and he would likely make connections she would not even have considered.

But for something like this, a face-to-face meeting with an unknown, Byleth was who she wanted at her side.

It was time. Edelgard considered making the stranger wait - it was a move common among executives, exerting your power in a small way, knowing that they would have no choice but to wait for you. But she rarely indulged in such displays, and doing it when there was so much unknown could be foolish.

Instead she crossed the street, Byleth following close behind, and entered the cafe.

The person in the dull yellow jacket had secured a small table for themselves. Only two chairs, but she knew that Byleth would prefer to remain standing anyway in case sudden movement was required. Edelgard did not waste time. She made her way over to the table and sat across from the person she was meeting.

“Hello,” he said with a smile. “Right on time!”

For a moment, Edelgard was taken aback. That smile, those eyes - where had she seen them before? Then it came to her, the flash of a memory, and her brows drew down.

“Claude von Riegan,” she said.

They had not met, though it was inevitable that they would - Leicester and Adrestia were the two biggest companies in the city now. In the country, in fact. It was only a matter of time before they’d find themselves at fundraisers and society parties together, or looking at each other across a boardroom table.

And Claude had made a splash when he arrived in Fódlan, the previously unknown grandson and heir to one of the most powerful megacorps in existence. Edelgard had seen this face in the tabloids, the newsfeeds, social media. She’d seen it in the report Hubert had prepared for her, which had contained shockingly little information.

He looked different in person. No, that wasn’t quite it - he had the same smile, the same sharp eyes. It was the clothes he was wearing that made him look different. In the photos she’d seen, he’d always been in a suit that was just barely on the tasteful side of flashy. He stood upright, casual but straight, and his smile seemed to promise the world.

The man across the table from her wore street clothes. The cafe had a mix of patrons, so his outfit didn’t stand out, but no one would ever wear clothes like that inside one of their offices. His smile, when he looked like this, seemed to promise nothing but secrets.

“Edelgard von Hresvelg,” he said, matching her tone. His grin hadn’t gone away. “Sorry, I didn’t know what you might want. Bergamot okay?”

She glanced down at the cup he pushed towards her, narrowing her eyes. Bergamot was one of her favorite blends. Either he’d known that and was lying, or he was very lucky. She wasn’t sure which was more likely.

His gaze flickered up to Byleth. Clearly taking note, cataloging her as a bodyguard, and - well, normally bodyguards were treated as furniture. Ignored, unless they were needed to do their jobs. But Claude tapped the other cup he was holding and said, “I didn’t know if anyone else would be coming, so I didn’t get anything. But you can have mine if you want.”

Byleth blinked. Her face did not move, but Edelgard knew her well enough to see the surprise there. “No thank you.”

“Your call,” he said, and looked between them, taking a sip of the drink Byleth had refused.

“Why are we here?” Edelgard said. She tapped her wrist implant, bringing up her schedule. “I have a conference call with a Dagdan textile company in twenty minutes. If this is some kind of joke -“

“It isn’t.” Claude still smiled, but there was something serious about his eyes, something dark that she’d never seen in any pictures of him. “I’ve been going through our files. I found some interesting things - like a trail of breadcrumbs that led me to your door.”

The cafe around them was loud enough to offer some privacy, but Edelgard inclined her head, knowing Byleth would catch the movement. Her bodyguard would activate the jammer she carried, keeping them from being recorded.

If Claude had any sense, he had one of his own, but Edelgard wasn’t sure what to expect from him yet.

“You mentioned the Blaiddyds.” She was uncertain about revealing her interest in the fallen family so soon, but merely showing up had been enough to do that. It was pointless to pussyfoot around.

“Yes,” Claude said. “Well, let’s get right to it, then. I have reason to believe that someone within Adrestia - maybe multiple someones - were responsible for the destruction of Blaiddyd Industries.”

At their table, a brittle silence fell, while around them the cafe hummed with the business of living.

She knew that, of course. Edelgard had known that for some time, and she’d been watching her back ever since. They’d had to be careful, so careful, while investigating it. And even now, as certain as she was, Hubert had been unable to deliver her anything she could act on.

But how had Claude found out? And why had he come to her?

“Do you think it was me?” 

She watched his face as he considered the question, but couldn’t read anything useful from it. She didn’t know him well enough, and it was clear he was used to hiding his thoughts.

“Not really,” he said finally. “Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s possible. You are in charge of Adrestia, so it’s hard to believe something like this could have happened without your knowledge.” He leaned in, smiling, and Edelgard felt Byleth tense next to her. “You were just the heir then, though, so I think it’s more likely that you weren’t involved.” A pause. “But you know something about it.”

What had given her away? Nothing, probably. He was guessing, based on whatever he’d learned.

But he was right.

“And if I do? Is this an attempt at blackmail? Because you have no proof, and I can promise you won’t get anything out of it.” She kept her voice cold and hard, and in return she saw him smile. Annoying.

“No way, I’m not that stupid. If I had blackmail on you I definitely wouldn’t set up an in-person meeting.” He leaned in, lowering his voice a little. “Mostly I’m curious. The Blaiddyd massacre has been a mystery for years, and I’d love to get to the bottom of it.” Then he paused for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was colder, his smile sharp as a blade. “And it seems that someone in my organization may have been involved. Peripherally, I hope, but I’m sure you understand that when my grandfather steps down I fully intend to clean house.”

Edelgard did understand. It was the first thing Claude had said that she understood unreservedly. After all, she had done the same.

They’d expected her to be a figurehead like her father had been. Instead, with some help, she had torn power from the hands of the board and installed her own people there - Ferdinand taking his father’s seat after a timely reveal of his embezzlement, Hubert taking the seat that had belonged to the Vestras for years after his own father suffered an unfortunate accident.

But she hadn’t done it alone. And she had known even then that there would be a price to pay - one that she was not willing to give. One that would be to the detriment of the entire city, or more.

Perhaps Claude von Riegan could help with that.

She took stock of the man across the table from her, considered her options, and made a decision. “There is someone operating behind the scenes. A group.”

Claude’s eyes lit up, but he said nothing, waiting for more.

“I’ve been aware of them for some time, and I’ve had someone looking into them as well. We’ve found traces, but nothing solid. Nothing we can use to take action.” That wasn’t the full truth, but Claude didn’t need to know that Edelgard had accepted their help, that she knew her uncle was one of them. That really, she hadn’t had much of a choice. Either he would come to that conclusion on his own or he wouldn’t, but she wasn’t going to hand it to him. 

“We should work together,” Claude said. “If they destroyed Blaiddyd, they’re a threat to us as well.”

Edelgard had realized that long ago, too. Whoever they really were, she had only been meant to be a pawn. Likely if they learned she was looking into them they would strike against her next. Hubert had been forced to be incredibly careful in his investigation. But if Claude was the one looking -

She nodded, quick and decisive. “Yes. You seem to have access to resources I don’t. It only makes sense that we combine our efforts. I’ll have Hubert send you his data.”

“And I’ll share what I have,” Claude said with a smile. They would both hold things back, but that didn’t matter. This was something. This was more than she’d had before. “There’s really nothing to work with?”

Edelgard considered. “Not nothing. Just nothing we can get to. Our information points to Blaiddyd - or the remnants of it. Cornelia Arnim is, without a doubt, working with this group, and as you know she has taken control of all that’s left of Blaiddyd Industries. We’ve gotten everything we can, but we believe she’s holding more information in the Blaiddyd vaults. There’s no way to get in there.”

“No way?” Claude looked unconvinced. “There’s always a way in.”

“The only person with access to the vaults is Cornelia. One of Blaiddyd’s products was extremely high-security DNA locks. Unhackable even now, and it was keyed to only board members. Cornelia is the only one left.”

“Only board members?” Claude said, tapping the top of his tea. “So all the Blaiddyds too, then.”

“Yes,” Edelgard said, and ignored the pang of regret that went through her. “But they’re all dead.”

“Sure,” said Claude. “But their DNA might still be around. Frozen eggs, blood donations, medical waste…”

“That all gets destroyed.”

“Not necessarily.” Claude was thinking hard, it was clear in his eyes. “Especially for people that high profile. You can make a buck off of anything these days.”

Edelgard wasn’t sure how Claude knew this. What an odd person. “What are you saying?”

“Just that it might not be impossible.” Claude smiled suddenly. “Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely not.”

He started to laugh. “Good. Well, give me a little time anyway and I’ll see what I can dig up.”

Edelgard hesitated for a moment, then nodded. It wasn’t as if she would lose anything by doing so, and if Claude really could find out more it would be more than worth it. She and Hubert had run up against a wall, unable to learn more, all their avenues exhausted. If Claude von Riegan was their best opportunity to dig deeper, she was going to take advantage of it.

“Can I contact you through the same email address?” she asked. 

“Yeah. I’ll get in contact with you again soon, but if you need me before then - well, better to use that address than my business one.” He grinned and stood, taking his cup of tea with him. “Sounds like I’ve got some work ahead of me. It was nice to finally meet you, Edelgard.” Claude nodded at Byleth, altogether too casual, and left them in the cafe. 

Edelgard watched him go, watched the easy way he moved and the smile he tossed at the cafe employees. He wasn’t really like she’d thought he would be at all. He wasn’t at all like his serious, business-minded grandfather, who Edelgard had met plenty of times. She wondered for a moment what Leicester would be like under Claude’s leadership. As the new generation of heirs took power, things were changing.

If only Dimitri had gotten his chance, too, she thought, and then banished that, swallowing down her regret.

“What do you think of him?” she asked, looking up at Byleth, who had also watched Claude leave. Who had been watching Claude steadily throughout the conversation, no trace of her thoughts visible on her face.

Byleth didn’t answer immediately, thinking it over. “He’s clever. He tries to act untrustworthy, but I don’t believe he’s any danger.” She paused. “He came here alone. No bodyguard. I think he had a weapon on him, but if so he didn’t touch it. He seemed to trust that we wouldn’t hurt him, at least.”

“A gamble,” Edelgard said. But she trusted Byleth’s assessment - she trusted her bodyguard more than nearly anyone living. If she thought Claude wasn’t setting up some sort of elaborate trap, Edelgard would believe her. “Well, let’s see what he brings us. This should be interesting.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [art](https://www.deviantart.com/factorialrabbits/art/An-Evening-At-Anna-s-868141910) in this chapter is by [FactorialRabbits!](https://twitter.com/FactorialRabbit) ♥♥♥

It was tiring spending all day learning how to run a powerful megacorp, then going home, sneaking out, and spending his nights investigating some kind of behind-the-scenes conspiracy. Claude found himself relying more on the free office coffee than he’d intended as sleep became a rare luxury. But he kept it up, and even managed to spend an evening out with Hilda, satisfying her demands. Edelgard didn’t contact him, and he didn’t contact her. He wouldn’t, not until he had something concrete.

Even getting a lead took almost two weeks. He was still new enough to Fódlan that he didn’t know exactly where to look, and his contacts back in Almyra were useless for anything involving these foreign corporations. In the end he was tipped off by a contact he hadn’t expected - an Almyran immigrant living in the city. 

She ran a restaurant in the lower city that Claude liked to visit when he craved the taste of home, and it seemed there was more to her than that, because when he offhandedly mentioned having trouble finding what he needed, she gave him a name and a contact email.

“He’s helped me out a few times with the restaurant,” she said, which explained a lot. It was almost impossible to get a legal business going without being underwritten by one of the megacorps, and illegal businesses - which were most of them, in the lower city - went to underground dealers to make it possible.

So Claude emailed her contact, being cautiously vague about what he wanted, and set up an in-person meeting.

Going to that meeting reminded Claude that the world was never as simple or safe as the rich wanted it to be. He was good at taking care of himself - excellent, in fact - but the city could be a wickedly dangerous place. It was easy for the wealthy and privileged to forget that, ensconced as they were in the gleaming upper city where the megacorps paid to keep the streets clean and safe. Even most of the lower-level megacorp workers lived, at worst, in the nicer parts of the lower city, in tall apartment blocks sponsored by their company and protected by the same - though, admittedly, the corps tended to spend less on that security.

Claude spent a good deal of time in the upper city, protected and cosseted, but he spent his nights elsewhere. It was impossible for him to ignore the vast difference in wealth and safety that came when he moved between his penthouse and the little apartment where he did his nighttime work. And even that was nowhere near the worst.

His apartment was in an area of the lower city that wasn’t far from the megacorp residential districts. As a result, though most people couldn’t afford their own private security, they got to bask a little in borrowed sunlight. The lowered crime rates of the megacorp residential districts carried over somewhat, thanks to the megacorps’ private security forces sometimes getting bored and venturing beyond their assigned districts. It wasn’t safe - far from it - but as long as you were careful and didn’t make yourself a target, you’d be fine.

There were much worse parts of the city, and that was where Claude was headed to now.

In the upper city, people called this area the slums, and said that stepping foot in it was no better than inviting your own death. But Claude had known places like this, back in Almyra - places where you could get anything for a price. They were dangerous, of course, but if you were smart and strong you could survive.

Still, as he entered the large repurposed warehouse he wished briefly for someone with a good gun hand at his back. He had one himself, a new-model Zoltan tucked safely into a harness under his jacket, slick and quiet and deadly. He held himself with confidence and didn’t present much of a target - young, visibly healthy, cautious. But you never knew what would happen, and though Claude had always operated alone, he couldn’t help but wish for trustworthy backup at times. Of course, he knew there was really no such thing, but with enough money he might be able to buy a facsimile.

The Abyss was an underworld market: a place to get an unlicensed gun, the designer drug of your choosing, a pretty face of whatever gender you preferred, or the kind of documents that might help you get somewhere safer. You could also easily get a bullet to the head if you weren’t careful.

Claude was familiar with places like these. There had been more than a few in Almyra, afflicted with the same vast income disparity as Fódlan, just with a royal family at the top instead of a cluster of warring megacorps. He’d visited them, knew how to move in them, how to keep himself safe.

The Abyss wasn’t any different, at the core of things. Different languages, different faces, but the desperate were the same anywhere. Claude moved among them with ease, looking for the small office tucked away in a corner. When he found it, a man stood outside - large and muscled and clearly a bodyguard. Claude smiled at him.

“I’m here to see Yuri.”

The man looked him over and raised an eyebrow, but stepped aside, allowing Claude to enter. Inside, he found himself mildly surprised at how simple the office was. A desk, two chairs, a basic terminal anyone might use. Nothing like what someone might expect from the person who ran the Abyss.

Claude liked that.

The man sitting on the other side of the desk was slim and attractive, apparently entirely at his ease. He was dressed like anyone on these streets, a mishmashed style of streetwear, light ultraweave armor, and tech. There was a gun on the desk, an older-model needlegun. He wasn’t holding it, but his hand was near enough to reach easily if necessary.

“Khalid,” he said, and smiled, a thin and untrustworthy thing.

“Yuri,” Claude said, and he matched that smile exactly as he took a seat on the other chair in the room.

“So glad you could come visit me,” Yuri said. “You know, now that you meet in person, you look a little familiar.” His eyebrows arched in amusement.

Claude kept his smile steady. This was why he’d always preferred operating behind a screen. A prince of Almyra or a future CEO of Fódlan were just too recognizable, and there wasn’t much he could do about that except try to keep away from any situation where people might connect his face to his persona on the net. Most of the people down here probably didn’t pay enough attention to megacorp news to recognize him, but Yuri? He would have been more surprised if Yuri _hadn’t_ recognized him. It had been fine with Edelgard - that meeting had no connection to Khalid the hacker. But this time he’d had no choice.

“I just have one of those faces,” he said, fooling neither of them. He’d have to bank on Yuri deciding it was smarter to keep a visit from the future leader of the Leicester conglomerate a secret.

“You must,” Yuri said with a smile, and left it at that. “You said you were looking for something, and that it might be difficult.”

Claude nodded. “I’m looking for Blaiddyd DNA.”

Yuri’s eyebrows rose. “ _Blaiddyd_?” He didn’t ask why, of course. He wouldn’t have the reputation he did if he pried into people’s reasons all the time. “That won’t be easy. They’ve been gone for awhile.”

“Can you do it?”

Yuri’s smile grew. “Oh, I can do it. It might require digging up a grave or two, but these are the hazards of doing business.” He waved a hand as if digging up graves was just another day’s work. Maybe it was. “It won’t be cheap.”

“What a surprise,” Claude said with a smile. “I can give you part up front, then the rest when you deliver.”

Yuri nodded and named a price. It was high, but not as bad as Claude feared. He tapped his wrist and pulled up an account - under a false name, of course, no connection to him - sending the money to the account Yuri requested.

“You don’t have an implant,” Yuri said. He had sharp eyes. Most people couldn’t tell, given Claude’s habit of wearing long sleeves to cover the thin cuff on his wrist that he had instead of the far more common implant.

It was the sort of thing people who couldn’t afford a proper implant wore, or people just on the edge of legality. For Claude, of course, it had never been a problem of money - instead, it was because of all the different worlds he walked in. Khalid the hacker, Khalid the prince of Almyra, Claude von Riegan - with an implant, it would be so much harder to move between these identities. He had a handful of wrist cuffs, and switched between them depending on what he needed. Most of the time, no one noticed.

“I don’t,” Claude said, and smiled, and said nothing else. Yuri raised one eyebrow and looked him over a little too keenly, but didn’t press the subject. Instead he tapped the projected screen of his own wrist implant.

“The payment went through.” He stood, a clear dismissal, though he was still smiling. “I’ll be in contact soon.”

Claude stood as well. “Nice working with you.”

Yuri laughed. “I’m just glad you’re not chasing after that fake Blaiddyd. He’s such a hassle.”

Claude paused. In the back of his mind, curiosity sparked. “Fake Blaiddyd?”

“Oh,” Yuri said, shaking his head as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “One of the mercenaries down here. There’s these rumors he’s the Blaiddyd heir - you know, the one who died in the massacre? I have no doubt he spread them himself to get more contracts. Happens every so often, someone saying they belong to this family or that they used to be security for a top CEO or something.”

“I guess if it gets them work, they may as well say what they like,” Claude said. “No one with sense would believe it, anyway.”

Yuri chuckled in agreement, leaning on his desk, and Claude left the office. He grinned at the big man by the door and headed out into the Abyss.

He should simply go home. It was stupid to stay somewhere dangerous for longer than necessary, he’d finished his business, and he had plenty of actual work to do - both at the Leicester headquarters and in his private safehouse. But Yuri’s dismissive comments about the unnamed mercenary claiming to be the Blaiddyd heir stuck with him.

It was probably exactly like Yuri had said: someone desperate for work, willing to make up whatever story they could in order to get their name on people’s lips. The fact that whoever this was hadn’t come forward in an attempt to retake their position and reclaim Blaiddyd Industries was really enough proof that it was a lie, right? If the Blaiddyd heir had survived, then the entire company belonged to him now. Even diminished as it was, Blaiddyd Industries still made much more money than a street merc could ever hope to.

But, Claude accepted with a sigh, he was curious. Though he knew better, he still wanted to see the kind of person who would make a claim like that. And wasn’t there always the chance that they might know something about the company, or about Cornelia, or about any of the things Claude was looking into? Sure, that chance was pretty slim, but it was _possible_.

Claude had never been good at denying his own curiosity.

It wasn’t too hard to find the man. A few questions about hiring a bit of muscle combined with a persona he created on the fly, an upcoming club owner wanting someone with a big name or a flashy story. He got a handful of recommendations - a woman who claimed she used to work security for the CEO of Seiros Investments, a man who said he was related to the Bergliez family, another whose claim to fame was being trained by Nader the Undefeated, famed head of security for the Almyran royal family (and _that_ one made Claude laugh aloud). Scattered among the names and locations was exactly what he was looking for.

“They call him the Tempest King,” a short, balding stall owner said, shrugging. “Supposedly the missing Blaiddyd heir. Real intimidating, if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for.”

It seemed Claude was lucky, because when he asked how to get in touch with the Tempest King, the man gestured vaguely towards the exit.

“Saw him in Anna’s, a few doors down. Might still be there.”

Anna’s turned out to be a bar. A mercenary bar, at that - Claude hadn’t seen so many large intimidating people hanging out together since his oldest brother’s last birthday party. But it made sense. There were places like these in any city, meeting spots where someone could go to find someone to do a job. Protection, or the opposite of it, depending on what was needed.

  
art by [FactorialRabbit](https://twitter.com/FactorialRabbit)

He scanned the dark, smoky room until he caught sight of a man who matched the description he’d been given. Big, blonde, all in dark colors and chipped body armor - but really the eyepatch was the giveaway. Most people these days would get a prosthetic instead, but the patch really was the perfect touch on top of an already intimidating look.

Claude made his way to the booth at the back of the bar. A few of the other mercenaries glanced at him, but it must have been obvious that he had a goal, because no one tried to draw his attention. He slid into the booth, taking the seat opposite the large man and smiling.

“Hi,” he said.

The Tempest King looked at him. He wasn’t quite scowling, but he was on the edge of it. He didn’t seem to be drinking, either - though there was a glass in front of him, it was untouched. More like a seat tax than anything, probably.

“If you’re not here for a job, leave,” the man said. He was curt, dismissive. It was about what Claude expected from a street merc - personable and charismatic weren’t really qualities in high demand. It didn’t bother him.

“What, I can’t just be looking for a nice conversation with a handsome guy?” Claude winked. Actually, now that he’d said it, the Tempest King _was_ handsome. He’d looked up photos of the Blaiddyd heir, and the blond hair and blue eyes (well, eye) was right. The rest of him… he couldn’t tell.

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd had looked, in all of his photos and the few videos Claude could find, like a rich young heir. He’d been polite and well-spoken. He’d smiled easily, he’d been trained from birth to present a good face to the world. This man was essentially the opposite of that, guarded and unfriendly and intimidating. He was taller than Dimitri had been, too, larger overall, but otherwise…

Honestly, Claude could see why the man had chosen that particular lie. He did sort of look like a bigger, angrier Dimitri Blaiddyd.

“This is the wrong kind of bar for that,” the Tempest King said, unamused. “Don’t waste my time.”

“All right, all right,” Claude said, and laughed. “I am looking for someone for a job, don’t worry.” He stuck to his story for now - it would be easy to decide he’d ‘changed his mind’ and leave once his curiosity was sated. “I’m on my way to making a name for myself, and they told me if I came here I could get the lost Blaiddyd heir to guard my back while I do it.”

The man across from him stiffened. “That isn’t me.”

It was his immediate denial, more than anything, that set alarm bells off in Claude’s brain. He couldn’t see what point there would be in denying a rumor he’d spread himself. Had it come back around to bite him in the ass somehow? That was hard to believe. No one really cared what the underworld dwellers said about themselves.

“You sure? A couple of little birdies told me that _was_ you.” Claude watched the man across from him. He was hard to read, especially with the way his hair fell in his face, but Claude thought he looked uncomfortable. Maybe even tense.

“If the pay is right, I’ll work for you,” he said. “But you will not mention that rumor again. I have other stipulations as well.”

“Oh yeah? What are those?”

“I will protect you. I will not kill anyone who is not a threat to you. I will not harm people for no reason. I will not be part of an enterprise that harms innocents.” He recited his terms coldly, finally. 

Claude wanted to laugh. An underworld mercenary with a conscience, who didn’t want his supposed reputation to be mentioned? Who was this man, really?

There was no way he could actually be Dimitri Blaiddyd, Claude told himself. It was impossible. That boy had died long ago, and if he hadn’t, what would he be doing here?

And yet.

Claude considered his words carefully. “And what if I said I was going to be working with someone from one of the megacorps?”

The man’s eye narrowed. “Megacorp security? Who?”

“Not security,” Claude said. “Edelgard von Hresvelg.”

The Tempest King stared at him, gaze so harsh Claude felt like it should burn him. “Impossible. Why would someone like you be working with the president of Adrestia? What game are you playing?” He rose halfway out of his seat. “I have no interest in this foolishness.”

“Dimitri, wait.”

The man paused. Claude did not know what to think.

“Are you really him?” Again he compared the images of Dimitri that he’d found with the man in front of him. Again he came to the same conclusion - it wasn’t impossible. It was his actions that made everything so uncertain. Claude had been more than ready to write him off, but nearly everything he’d done since Claude sat down was having the opposite effect.

The man glowered at him. “If I were him, what would I be doing here?”

“That’s what I’m wondering,” Claude said, and then he decided to throw the dice. “I am working with Edelgard. I wasn’t lying about that. We’re working together to find out who was really behind the fall of Blaiddyd Industries - and what their plans are now. We could use your help.”

It was a danger to tell the truth, because it always was. This world was desperate enough that anyone might sell him out if they thought it might get them something. But if there was the slightest possibility that this man actually was Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd - 

Claude had to take the chance.

“Who are you?” The question was harsh, bordering on aggressive. The large man looked even more tense, his hand gripping the edge of the table hard enough that his knuckles were going white.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Claude smiled. “Claude von Riegan. Nice to meet you.”

The way the man’s eye widened was enough proof that he recognized the name, even if he had not recognized Claude’s face. He stood for a moment, frozen, thinking, and then seemed to come to a decision.

“Edelgard is responsible for the death of my family,” he bit out. “You’re a fool if you think I would ever help either of you.”

Claude leaned forward. “She was only a child when it happened. You both were. Why do you think she’s responsible?”

Dimitri - because Claude was truly beginning to believe that was who he was talking to - waved Claude’s question away with a curt gesture. “If not responsible, then complicit. Our fall led to her rise. Adrestia moved into the market space we lost - quickly enough that they had to have known it was going to happen. She benefited from the death of my family.” His voice shook with barely-leashed anger.

“Maybe,” Claude said. “But maybe not. Call me a fool, but I don’t think she knew - even if she did profit off it afterwards. But why don’t you come talk to her and find out for yourself?” 

Dimitri stared at him for a long, measuring moment.

“Bring me to her.” 

  


* * *

  


This time, Claude picked a spot nowhere near Adrestia’s headquarters. If he and Edelgard were seen together, there would be rumors, but it wouldn’t be terribly out of the ordinary for two heirs to meet one-on-one. But with Dimitri in the mix - a street mercenary who Claude was increasingly more certain was actually the dead Blaiddyd heir - he needed to be much more careful.

They met at a noodle shop not too far from Claude’s safehouse. Dimitri had been shadowing him since they’d left the Abyss, likely having decided that Claude might disappear if he took his eyes off him. Claude didn’t mind. He was just glad Edelgard had agreed to meet on such short notice. 

They got there first, and Claude secured a private booth with a smile at the owner and a reasonable bribe. He’d have preferred a little more time to ensure it was safe and free from surveillance, but the jammer in his wrist cuff would do well enough. He bought them both greasy bowls of noodles and - since he hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before - dug in.

Dimitri did not touch his noodles, instead watching the door. That meant Claude knew the instant Edelgard stepped inside, because Dimitri went utterly still, tense in a way that was almost disturbing.

Claude looked up, watching the play of emotions across Edelgard’s face. Guarded interest at first, and then the moment her eyes fell on Dimitri - confusion, recognition, shock. Everything fell away in the face of that shock, and it was then that Claude put his last suspicions to rest. Edelgard recognized him. When Edelgard saw this man, she saw Dimitri, and that meant every bit of it was true.

Claude did not entirely know what to think about that, and in the end chose to set it aside for later. He had so many questions, but they would have to wait, because he could already feel the tension in the air. This would need to be navigated carefully. He didn’t understand everything going on here - couldn’t, really.

Edelgard approached. Behind her, her serious bodyguard followed her in, and Claude caught the woman’s eyes and exchanged quick nods. She could feel the tension as clearly as him, and her eyes were on Dimitri, her hands held carefully at her side. She had a gun under her coat, Claude knew, that she could retrieve in a moment if necessary. He hoped it wouldn’t be.

“Dimitri,” Edelgard said when she was standing next to their table. Her voice was soft, barely more than a whisper, and her eyes were wide.

“Edelgard,” Dimitri said, and it was more like a growl. The tension in his body was enough that Claude grew tense as well, wondering if he’d have to throw himself across the table to keep him from attacking Edelgard. A laughable thought, really, when Dimitri was big enough to put him through the table with ease, but he’d try if it came to that.

“You’re… how are you alive?” She did not step closer, wisely keeping the table between them. “You were reported dead. You’ve been missing for years.”

“No doubt they thought they’d killed me.” Dimitri’s hands gripped the edge of the table. “When they killed my family, they shot me in the head and left me to die. An oversight on their part.” His eyes narrowed. “You should find more competent killers next time.”

Edelgard stiffened. “No.” Her voice wavered for a moment, only a moment, and then went hard. “I wasn’t the one who sent them.”

“That’s what he says,” Dimitri said, his one blue eye resting on Claude briefly. “But you and your mother had our security codes - the ones they used. Your company profited off our losses. And you used the destabilization to seize power for yourself. Who sent them, if not you?”

“That’s all true,” Edelgard said. She was standing tall now, having recovered her poise. “And I… have considered the possibility that it was my mother who gave them those codes. But we weren’t the only ones who knew them, and although I did use what happened, I swear to you I did not cause it.”

“And you expect me to simply take your word for that?”

“Actually,” Claude said, keeping his voice casual, undercutting the tension that was filling the air, “If you help us out, I think you’re gonna get all the proof you need.”

That brought Dimitri’s attention back to him, some of the anger fading from his face. When he saw that Dimitri seemed willing to listen, at least, Claude continued.

“We’re investigating the people who really did it. Edelgard knows a little, and I know a little, but we haven’t been able to put all the pieces together. But everything points to Cornelia working with them, and if that’s the case, we’ve got to get into the vault there. That’s where you come in.”

Dimitri frowned. “I assumed Cornelia was working with Adrestia.” His hands tensed on the table’s edge, voice edged with anger. “I would have killed her years ago, if I could get to her.” His gaze flickered to Edelgard. “You, as well.”

Edelgard only nodded, apparently unbothered by this. “She’s working for the people who orchestrated all of this. It’s true that they’re involved with my company - how deeply, even I’m not sure. But I want to root them out, dig them up and destroy them before they can cause more damage.”

“It’s a threat to all of us,” Claude said. “They’ll turn Edelgard into a figurehead if they realize she’s onto them - or just kill her. And they’re reaching out to Leicester as well. I don’t know how deep the rot goes, but these people want it all. Blaiddyd was their first strike, and if we don’t stop them we’ll be next.” He raised his eyebrows at Dimitri. “Wouldn’t you like a little revenge?”

“Not just revenge,” Dimitri said, his fury blindingly clear in that moment. “Justice.”

“Will you help us?” said Edelgard. She looked at Dimitri, and he looked back at her. For a long moment there was silence, a tense silence that Claude did not break. He waited to see if Dimitri’s anger would be stronger than his betrayal. He wished he’d known Dimitri before, he wished he had some idea of what he might be thinking.

“El,” Dimitri said finally, and Claude saw something cross Edelgard’s face, something he hadn’t seen before. Pain. “I don’t know if you can be trusted. I don’t know if _he_ can, either.” He nodded at Claude. “But if any of this is true then I cannot pass up this chance. My family deserves justice. Their blood, their deaths - I will not allow it to be for nothing.” A pause, and his brows drew down. “If you betray me, I will tear your flesh from your bones.”

Edelgard nodded, slow and certain, her face still. Behind her, her bodyguard’s eyes had never left Dimitri. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. For profiting from the death of your family - for gaining anything from that misery. I can’t undo it, but I am sorry.”

Dimitri looked away, unwilling or unable to say anything. Claude allowed it for a moment, but then clapped his hands together, making both Dimitri and Edelgard jump and look at him.

“So! Now that that’s settled, let’s get to planning. It’s not gonna be easy to break into Blaiddyd Industries.” 

  


* * *

  


When they parted ways, Dimitri had not yet decided how he felt about seeing Edelgard again.

They had been close once upon a time, when his father and her mother were involved. She had been a friend, he thought, something like a sister. He’d trusted her.

And then everything went wrong, and his family died, and when he awoke to his world destroyed he had seen her profit from it. As if they had all been nothing but pawns, rather than people she had known. He’d believed for years that she had been involved in their deaths, and now -

Now he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t trust her, but at the same time he didn’t have a choice. If he was to have any chance at exposing the ones who had destroyed his family, he had to trust her. He had to trust Claude von Riegan, as well.

In many ways, that was easier. Unless Claude really was playing both of them, there was no way he’d been involved in any of it. He hadn’t even been around then, had only appeared as the Leicester heir recently. Dimitri would not have called him trustworthy, exactly - it was clear he had secrets - but he felt relatively certain that those secrets would not lead to his betrayal.

He didn’t know what to think of Claude. He didn’t know what to think of Edelgard. Both of them seemed certain of themselves, of this path they were choosing, and Dimitri -

Dimitri could return to his life, a hired gun for anyone with the money. Or he could trust them, and risk betrayal, and hope for some kind of justice.

In the end, it wasn’t a difficult choice. What point was there in his survival if he did not take this chance at justice?

Edelgard left the restaurant before them, her silent bodyguard at her heels. She couldn’t risk being seen with them right now - not if they were to effectively pull off the plan Claude had come up with. He waited with Claude until enough time had passed, and then they left as well, Claude nodding to the owner as they did.

“Heading home?” Claude asked. Dimitri glanced at him, thinking about the cramped cubby he paid for, just expensive enough to have a proper lock on the door and no more. It wasn’t home, simply a place to sleep.

“Yes,” he said, because he really didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t quite know how to speak to Claude, in truth. 

Claude did not seem to have the same problem. “If you don’t have anywhere to be, wanna come with me? I’ve got a place not too far from here. I want to see if I can get a good layout of the Blaiddyd HQ. The stuff I’ve been able to find isn’t complete, but I bet you could fill a few of the holes for me.”

He was always thinking, always planning. Dimitri was not stupid, but he’d never had a head for that sort of thing, had never had the sort of ease with strategy that seemed to be second nature for Claude. He had not considered the need for a map - he remembered the halls well enough - but the plan was for Claude to join him when they broke in, and such a thing would certainly be helpful for him in case they were separated.

“All right,” he said, and Claude grinned up at him.

“Right this way.” They’d taken public transit to get there, the cramped and dangerous subway that everyone who wasn’t lucky enough to afford a private car and driver was forced to use. They didn’t this time, Claude simply leading the way down the street. The sky above was dark, the sun having set hours before, the street lit mostly by neon signs and half-broken streetlights. Claude didn’t seem to mind the darkness. He talked easily and casually about nothing in particular - the noodles they’d just eaten, the rainy weather, some drama he’d caught an episode of recently.

Dimitri didn’t have much to offer in return, but to his surprise he found himself trying. It wasn’t much - murmured agreement, quiet questions - but he could not remember the last time someone had spoken to him so easily. Usually his appearance and demeanour, deliberately cultivated to be intimidating, put people off. That’s how he wanted it. It was good for his line of work to be feared, and he did not need friends.

But even so, there was a part of him that still liked to be treated like a person, instead of a hired gun or a monster. He would never have expected or asked for it, but here was Claude von Riegan, the strange heir to one of the biggest megacorps in Fódlan, offering it without a second thought.

Between Claude and Edelgard, Dimitri’s world seemed to be tilting off his axis again. He did not know what to think of it yet. He was wary, but somewhere deep down there was a kernel of hope.

Justice wasn’t impossible. And perhaps - perhaps he did not have to be alone.

Something changed. Claude, next to him, went quiet, and then Dimitri felt it too - the sensation of eyes on them. In his line of work, he had to be aware of such things, and it seemed that Claude had sharp instincts as well.

“Up ahead,” Claude said, just quietly enough that it would be difficult for anyone else to hear.

Ahead there was an alleyway, the entrance shrouded in darkness. The closest streetlight had been broken, and the low apartment building next to it had its lobby lights out as well. The perfect setup for an ambush.

Dimitri had enough time to get his hand on his weapon, and then they attacked.

In the darkness, it was impossible to tell how many people there were, but they made no attempt at subtlety. A shot rang out, pinging off the concrete wall behind them, and then everything descended into chaos.

Later, Dimitri would go over the fight in his mind and count six men, four who approached to fight hand-to-hand and two who stayed back and used their guns as covering fire. Later, he would decide that their initial purpose had been capture, but that their orders had likely stated that if capture was not possible, death would be an acceptable alternative. Later, he would understand that Claude had been their target, and he was just an inconvenient obstacle.

But he did not have the luxury of thinking any of that at the time. Dark figures moved out of the alley, gunshots shattered the night, and Dimitri reacted with the skill that long years as a mercenary had brought him.

He kept his lance beneath his coat, and he freed it easily with one pull, flicking the switch that telescoped the shaft out to its full length. Electricity crackled along the sharpened blade. With ease, and without a second thought, Dimitri placed himself between Claude and the men rushing at them. It was a simple equation: he fought for a living. Claude did not. He would protect Claude, who had certainly earned it.

Dimitri tripped one man up with the shaft of his lance, then pivoted smoothly to ram the electrified end into the stomach of another man, who crumpled to the ground, blood spilling. Another shot rang out, and he moved before realizing that it had come from behind him - Claude had a gun out, his face calm and his eyes bright, responding to the bullets aimed at them with some of his own.

So perhaps Claude was not so desperately in need of protection. That was reassuring. Dimitri spun again, barely missing another man, and the fourth came at him with a vibraknife glinting in the darkness. Aimed at his chest, it slid off his body armor and scored a glancing line down his upper arm. He felt the sensation of a blade cutting through flesh, but he didn’t feel the pain. Not yet, not in the throes of battle. He lashed out instead, kicking the man hard enough to send him sprawling, then bringing his lance down, sending arcs of electricity through his opponent’s body. He barely noticed the screams.

Claude’s gun barked again and a third man fell, joining the first two bodies, blood staining the concrete. The last man paused for a split second, then turned and ran. The two gunmen were already gone, and Dimitri started to go after them, hands tightening on his lance.

“No,” Claude said, his voice tight. He was leaning over one of the bodies on the ground, gun still in his hand. “Let them go. We need to get out of here before anyone else comes.”

He tapped at his wrist, and Dimitri heard a muffled thump from inside the apartment building. Flames bloomed at one of the windows and the fire alarm began to howl. Claude looked closer to anger than Dimitri had yet seen, and he stepped back. “I’m going to call us a car. There’s no point in being subtle anymore - not when they’ve already made me destroy my safehouse.”

Dimitri looked up at the flickering fire. “We can go to my place.” It wasn’t ideal, but it was something - but Claude was already shaking his head.

“We’ll go to my apartment. The official one.” He laughed, and there were threads of annoyance all through it. “It’s got 24/7 security, and not the cheap kind. Plus I’m supposed to be there, so it’s not like it’ll give anything away.” His eyes went to Dimitri’s arm, stained with blood and now beginning to send spikes of pain through him. “I’ve got first aid supplies there, too.”

Dimitri nodded. He could have refused, he supposed, but his adrenaline was still high and he did not at all like the idea of leaving Claude alone. Not if he was being targeted.

They moved a few blocks away, distancing themselves from the attack and the fire. Dimitri’s eye scanned the shadows around them, alert for another attack or any eyes watching them. “That apartment building. That was where we were going?”

“Yeah,” Claude said. “They must have tracked me there and set up an ambush. They wouldn’t have been able to get anything off the computers, though - they’re all set up to self-destruct if anyone but me tries to get in.” He grinned, a cool thing devoid of pleasure. “And now there won’t even been any physical evidence to work with.”

“You set explosives in your own safehouse,” Dimitri said. Even knowing Claude for such a short time, he found that he wasn’t surprised.

“Not really _explosives_ ,” Claude said. “Just incendiary devices. It’ll look like someone left the stove on, so long as no one looks too closely. And who would, down here?”

It was the truth. No one cared to investigate fires in the lower city, not even here, in a relatively well-off area. Fires, burglary, murders - those were the sorts of things that Dimitri had been hired to prevent in the past, and sometimes to inflict. Paid to do so because the authorities simply did not care. Not if you didn’t have the money to make them care.

Claude did have that money. He had more than enough. But he wanted to keep his actions secret, and if Dimitri didn’t understand the exact reasons, he could certainly understand the general sentiment.

“Damn,” Claude said with a sigh as a sleek black car pulled up. “It takes awhile to get a safehouse set up properly, you know? Now I’ve got to start from scratch.”

They got in. It was the sort of car you only saw in the lower city when the rich came to slum, and when Claude grinned at the driver, Dimitri realized that was exactly the impression he intended to give.

“Fun night out, huh Dima? Take us home.” 

The driver’s eyes flickered to them in the mirror. He was paid enough that he didn’t ask questions, though Dimitri had little doubt he would report every bit of this to whoever his superior was. Claude’s grandfather, most likely. The head of Leicester. Dimitri hoped he didn’t bleed on the seats too much, but if he did he supposed explaining it would be Claude’s problem. He had no doubt that Claude would cook up some overly clever explanation.

By the time they got to the tower of shining glass that Claude lived in, Dimitri’s adrenaline was ebbing and his arm hurt more than ever. He was beginning to reconsider this. This world - Claude’s world, Edelgard’s world - it wasn’t one that he belonged in anymore.

But what was his alternative? Ask Claude’s driver to drop him off in the lower city? Find the unlicensed doctor he’d gone to before and ask them to take care of the knife wound in his arm, then return to his cupboard-sized bunk and sleep it off? 

They were already there. The car pulled up in front of the glittering building, clean and bright in the unbroken streetlights. Security patrolled the streets here, and the building would have its own security too. They would be safer here, even if they could not move as freely.

The car pulled away. Dimitri followed Claude inside, noting the professional detachment of the guards at the door. They did not look at him curiously, did not even blink, no matter how obvious it was that he didn’t belong here. And Claude sailed past them without a blink, only a smile and a tap of his wrist against the security scanner.

This world would have been Dimitri’s, in another life.

He tried to push the thought from his head as they boarded the elevator and rode up to Claude’s penthouse. He tried to shove the memories away, into the dark and cold abyss where they belonged. But by the time he was sitting on Claude’s expensive sofa, waiting for him to retrieve his first aid kit, it was impossible.

He’d been in rooms like these. It felt like it had been a hundred years since then, since he’d walked among the gleaming lights of the rich. His father had owned a couple of penthouses, lending them to visiting business partners or friends. Their family, though, had lived in a walled estate on the edge of the upper city, all manicured lawns and old wood. It had burned the night his family was murdered.

But he’d visited these sleek towers of steel and chrome plenty of times. Rodrigue, his father’s friend and head of their biggest subsidiary, had preferred to live near headquarters, and his son had been Dimitri’s best friend. They’d spent hours roaming the tower, protected by expensive security, safe and so far away from the true dangers of the city.

Rodrigue was still alive. He hadn’t been on the board, since it had been kept to family members, and so he hadn’t been in the building when the massacre happened. Felix was alive, too, though his older brother had been on the headquarters security force and had died in the massacre. Dimitri had not sought them out for so many different reasons. And yet now here he was, in the penthouse of the heir to the Leicester Conglomerate. Two days ago, he’d been wrapping up a job for a smuggler who’d tried to stiff him in his pay, and now this.

Claude came into the room, a box in his hands. He set it down and sat next to Dimitri. “All right. Shirt and armor off.”

Dimitri stared at him for a moment, and Claude laughed. “What? That wound needs stitches. You can’t expect me to do it through your clothes.”

The pain was ever-present, but Dimitri had almost forgotten about it, so caught up in his own thoughts. He shook himself back to reality and unhooked his battered armor, then peeled his shirt off. The edges of it stuck to his skin where he’d been cut, but he didn’t wince as he pulled it away. This wasn’t the first time he’d been injured.

It was only after his shirt was off that Dimitri realized how long it had been since anyone had seen this much of him. He felt a sudden surge of discomfort, very aware of the ugly scars that marred his skin. The first of them, he’d gotten on that awful night years ago, but since then there’d been so many more.

But Claude didn’t say anything. He looked at Dimitri, the weight of his gaze undeniable, but he didn’t comment on the scars, he didn’t speak any words of pity. And though Dimitri didn’t know him well, there didn’t seem to be horror in his eyes either - only a quiet comprehension.

“This will sting,” was all that Claude said, and then he began cleaning Dimitri’s wound with gauze soaked in some kind of antiseptic solution. It did sting, rather badly, and Dimitri gritted his teeth and endured it. He looked at the first aid kit next to Claude instead, noticing how well-stocked it seemed. Much more so than anything someone might have expected to find in the penthouse of a young heir.

Just who exactly was Claude von Riegan, anyway?

The wound clean, Claude took out a small handheld device that Dimitri recognized. The underworld doctor he went to had used one on him a few times before - it put in stitches neatly and precisely. Though they were available to the general public, they were yet another thing one wouldn’t expect to find in an average household. And Claude used it with ease, as if he’d had practice.

Dimitri watched him, trying to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, but it was impossible. There was too much he didn’t know. And it wasn’t any of his business, really, was it? Claude was only… well, not quite an employer, really. An ally?

Dimitri didn’t know. Finally, as Claude placed a piece of gauze over the wound and began to tape it down, he gave in to his curiosity. “You seem familiar with this sort of thing.”

Claude pressed the last bit of tape in place and raised his head, flashing Dimitri a bright smile. He seemed to consider him for a moment, weighing his response, and Dimitri could almost see the moment when he decided not to shrug the question off. “This isn’t the first time people have tried to kill me. I haven’t always come out unscathed.”

He began to put his supplies back in the first aid kit, taking care to place them in the right compartments. “I probably wouldn’t have this time either, if you hadn’t been there. So thank you.”

It was true that assassinations were not terribly uncommon among the elites of the city, and Claude was the heir to Leicester. But he’d only been announced recently - Dimitri knew that much, for all that he didn’t spend much time browsing the feeds - so he must have been living some sort of dangerous life before that. Dimitri wondered if that was why Claude seemed so easy around him, easy in a way that most weren’t. Perhaps they both had experience fighting for survival.

“Who were those men?” 

Claude shrugged. “Honestly, I can’t be sure. They could have been sent by the people we’re going after, but it’s just as possible that they’re working for someone who doesn’t want me to be CEO. I know I made a lot of people unhappy when I showed up.” He paused, considering. “Could be someone else, too. It would be a lot easier if people announced their employer’s name before trying to kill me.” He was smiling, and Dimitri wondered how many assassination attempts it took before you got a sense of humor about them.

He did not find it particularly funny at all.

“Anyway, we’re about as safe here as we can be.” Claude reached out, patting him on the shoulder, and Dimitri tried not to tense. “Security here gets paid a lot to make sure us tenants survive.”

“You’re not concerned about what they thought of you bringing me here?”

“They’re paid for discretion, too. They probably just think I was in the mood for a bit of rough this evening.” Claude grinned at him. Dimitri felt his ears get hot. He hadn’t considered that they might think he was there for… that. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Flattered, maybe, that Claude would choose someone like him.

Claude stood then, stretching for a moment before picking up the first aid kit. “I’m gonna take a shower. Want me to order food before I go? You barely touched your noodles before, you must be starving.”

Dimitri had not had any appetite, his stomach twisting with tension thanks to the knowledge that he would see Edelgard in the flesh after so many years. He still couldn’t have said he was hungry, but he felt the distant need to eat, and so he nodded. “Anything is fine.”

Tapping his wrist to pull up a screen for ordering, Claude wandered off into the depths of his penthouse. Dimitri sat for awhile, until he heard the shower start, and then he stood.

He didn’t poke around much. There was no point to it. Claude was too clever to leave out anything sensitive, and besides, they were allies. Dimitri did not need to look for any kind of leverage. 

And the truth was, there didn’t seem to be any. The penthouse was furnished with expensive, sleek furniture, a whisper-thin viewscreen on one wall, tasteful art on the others. It looked more like a showroom than a place someone lived. Likely there were housekeeping staff who kept the place spotless, designers who had chosen each art piece. Except for a few careless stacks of books and a pair of shoes in one corner, there was no sign of Claude in this place.

Dimitri wondered if his safehouse, the one he’d burned, had been different. If there had been more of Claude in it. Maybe. Maybe not.

By the time Claude finished showering, the food had been delivered. It was nothing fancy, a small collection of Almyran dishes, but Dimitri was sure it must have been expensive. Everything in the upper city was. When he smelled it, his appetite flared to life, and Claude settled on the couch next to him as he dug in.

Claude’s hair was still wet. The clothes he’d changed into after his shower were looser and softer than what he’d been wearing before, and he was barefoot, looking much more open than Dimitri had expected. It drew Dimitri’s eye, until suddenly he realized Claude was looking back at him with a faint smile. Then, flushing red, he returned to his food.

At least Claude was kind enough not to comment on it. Instead he said, after a long silence, “If I ask how you survived, would you tell me? The curiosity is killing me.”

When Dimitri glanced at him again, he saw that Claude was smiling. He had no trouble believing that this man was easily consumed by curiosity about things that were really none of his business. 

Dimitri considered it silently. He had not talked about this before. He didn’t have friends, exactly, and those few acquaintances he kept were mainly for work purposes and knew nothing true about him. But when he thought about it, it caused little pain. Perhaps it would be all right to tell Claude.

“They thought I was dead. They left me to be found, like the others.” It was distant now, a movie he’d replayed over and over again until it didn’t make him break down screaming. Even so, he could still remember it so vividly. The pain, the fear. Waking up among the bodies of his family and their bodyguards, among friends and coworkers. All dead.

There had been blood everywhere.

“They shot me.” Dimitri raised one hand, fingers brushing the dark patch covering his eye. Beneath there was only hideous scar tissue. No wonder they had assumed he was dead - who could survive a bullet through the eye? “I don’t remember much after that.”

Blurry images. Pain. Stumbling through darkened streets, rain and neon and bright advertisements far above him, not enough to illuminate his path. He’d collapsed eventually. He would have died there, he thought.

“Someone found me. He was on his way home from work. He took me to an underworld doctor instead of one of the corporate hospitals.” Dedue had done his best for Dimitri without realizing it. He’d been in Fódlan without papers, working a menial job. He would never have been able to pay the prices the megacorp-run hospitals demanded, or answer the questions. What had been a decision made out of practicality had probably saved Dimitri’s life - the moment he’d entered a corporate facility, he would have been tracked, trapped, and vulnerable.

“By the time I recovered, it was all over.” He shook his head, brief and abrupt. He didn’t remember much of those early months - his recovery had been slow, and he’d been in a lot of pain. “I knew there was no point in going back. I would have been signing my own death warrant. Better that they think I was already dead.” Dimitri was silent for a long time, and Claude didn’t break that silence. He just waited, letting Dimitri take his time, until finally he said what he knew was the truth. “I lost myself.”

He had not put it in such stark terms before, but somehow there was a freedom to acknowledging it. He could have fought back, could have tried to find some sort of justice for his family. Instead, he’d sunk into anger and guilt, hatred towards himself for being the only one who survived. It had been easy to justify - Dedue had gone deeply into debt to pay for his treatment, and Dimitri’s choice to hire himself out as a mercenary once he’d recovered enough had been necessary to pay back those debts. After that, he’d wanted to repay his friend, wanted to help him get back to Duscur, to his family.

Then, once Dedue was safely home, it had simply been easier to stay in the underworld. To throw away Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, throw away that world that had taken his family. Had taken everything from him.

But he’d never really been able to throw it away, had he? Dedue had offered to bring him to Duscur, where he could have truly started fresh, but he’d refused. And he had always chosen his jobs carefully - rather than work for anyone who could pay, he’d avoided anything offered by the megacorps or those who worked for them. He’d tried to choose work that he could tell himself was helping people, even if it amounted to little more than cracking skulls.

He’d tried to tell himself none of it mattered anymore, but the moment Claude had offered him the tiniest chance at justice, he’d jumped for it. Really, he had been lying to himself all this time. Somewhere in his heart he had always hoped to find a way to make things right, to repay the ghosts of those he had lost.

And now he could not pretend otherwise anymore. Now, it might really happen.

“It’s not so easy,” Claude said, and when Dimitri looked at him, he smiled. Easy and casual, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Surviving.”

“No,” Dimitri said. He didn’t know Claude’s story - perhaps he never would, just as Claude would never know all of his. But that didn’t seem to matter. There was a quiet understanding there, behind the smiles and all that cleverness. “It isn’t.”

Claude stretched, yawning, and slid easily onto a different subject. “Well, there’s not much we can do until Edelgard’s ready to go, and that might take a day or two. Time to get some rest, I think.”

He was right. It had already been late when their meeting with Edelgard had ended, and though Dimitri was used to late nights and long hours without rest, now that he’d eaten he could feel the weariness beginning to sink into his bones. He hesitated for a moment, unsure - was he meant to ask Claude to call a car for him? Or find his own way back to the lower city?

Claude, it seemed, was not even thinking of such things. He stood and stretched again, the line of his body drawing Dimitri’s eye despite himself. “You can use the shower whenever you want. You’re a lot bigger than me, but I have a few things that might fit.” He turned, eyeing Dimitri. “I can order better stuff tomorrow.”

Dimitri did not know how to feel. “You don’t need to do that.”

Claude waved it off, unconcerned. “I have an expense account. It’s not even my money, really, so I feel pretty good using it on you instead. Unless you have things you need back at your place?”

The truth was, he didn’t. By necessity Dimitri owned hardly anything, and his room had been broken into often enough that he didn’t leave anything of value there. Some old clothes, basic supplies. He kept his weapons and armor on him nearly always, and of course he had them now. Often he’d be hired for longer-term contracts that had him sleeping in a dorm or somewhere else, so he’d never needed anything permanent. It had only been a place to rest between jobs.

He supposed, in a way, this was no different. Claude was something of an employer, offering him a place to stay.

Or maybe that was just a rationalization. An excuse to stay in this place that, though it didn’t quite feel like a home, still felt more safe and comfortable than anywhere Dimitri had stayed in a long time. And Claude’s presence was - perhaps more tempting than Dimitri was ready to admit to himself.

And so he found himself shaking his head. “I have what I need for our plan here.” His lance, his armor, the other weapons currently on his person. “I… suppose it’s simpler if I stay.”

“Definitely,” Claude said with a laugh. “Then we won’t have to worry about how to get you here when Edelgard’s ready to make her move. And I’ll get to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re safe and sound.

He winked, and Dimitri felt compelled to point out, “I was not the one targeted today.”

“Okay, then you’ll get to keep an eye on me and make sure I’m safe and sound.” Claude grinned, such a bright and eye-catching thing. “I could use the company anyway. It’s nice to talk to someone who’s chief concern isn’t how much money I’m going to make them.”

Dimitri wondered if his father had felt like that. He wondered if he would have felt like that one day, if he had taken over the company. Would he have been anything like Claude?

Probably not. Claude was casual, easy. He wasn’t anything like Edelgard, sleek and tailored to fit the image of a CEO. And Dimitri wasn’t like either of them. Even if things had been different, Dimitri didn’t think he would have been like either of them. And now he was something else entirely.

But it was true, at least, that he did not care in the slightest about the amount of money Claude was making anyone. He only cared about whether this plan would work, whether staying here with Claude was the right choice.

Claude was thinking about something else entirely, looking him up and down, eyes narrowing. “I have extra blankets, but you’re way too big for the sofa. You can have the bed and I’ll stay out here.”

Dimitri frowned, torn from his own thoughts by this ridiculous suggestion. “This is your home. I’m not going to force you out of your own bed.”

The grin Claude shot him then was bright enough to blind. “Well, I’m not making you sleep on the floor. So you wanna share, then?” He winked. “If you wanted to get me into bed, you just had to ask.”

Dimitri’s cheeks went hot. Claude was teasing him, he knew that, but he didn’t know how many years it had been since someone had done that. Dedue was the closest thing he’d had to a friend since his family died, and he’d never been the sort to tease, even before he’d left for Duscur. He didn’t know how to react to it. It brought to mind old friends, a different Dimitri, a different world.

It wasn’t as painful as he might have expected. Instead it only made him yearn for things he couldn’t have.

Claude took pity on him, which was good, because Dimitri had no idea how to respond. “Really, Dimitri, you’re injured, and I’ve slept on that couch before. Take the bed. That way I won’t wake you up when I get up in the middle of the night with something I need to look into right that second.”

“Very well.” Dimitri couldn’t find a reasonable counter-argument, for all that he still felt strange taking Claude’s bed. He would simply have to repay Claude for the kindness, one way or another.

Repay him for many kindnesses, if this all worked out. If he was able to find justice for his family. He tried not to think about the debt he might end up owing Edelgard, as well.

That night, clean and bandaged, Dimitri found himself sleeping more easily than he would have thought possible in such a strange place. He slept deeply and calmly, the ghosts that haunted his dreams allowing him one night of respite.

The pillows smelled like Claude.


	3. Chapter 3

“I really didn’t think I’d ever see him again.”

They were in Edelgard’s office, the plate glass window showing a view of the city. It was beautiful from up here, all dark skies and neon lights, rain pattering against the glass. Edelgard found it hard to appreciate, though, when she knew what that beauty covered up. What it was really like down there.

She’d mourned Dimitri - mourned his whole family. Now she could not forget the look on Dimitri’s face when he saw her. The way he’d blamed her. Had he blamed her all this time? Could she really blame him for that in turn, when she had indeed used the death of his family to grasp at what power she could?

Did it really matter that she’d mourned him, that she’d been shocked by the loss, when she’d still used it? She could call it pragmatism all she liked, but it wasn’t hard to see why, to Dimitri, it would look like cruelty instead.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. When she raised her eyes to the window again, Byleth was visible behind her, quiet and supportive, and Edelgard felt herself relax.

Others had called Byleth cold before, or distant. One of Edelgard’s trade partners had made a joking comment about her being a robot, a new product developed by Adrestia’s tech divisions. Edelgard hadn’t laughed. She had never seen Byleth that way, and in moments like these, there was no one else she’d want next to her.

She’d found Byleth on her own, when she had realized she needed a bodyguard who hadn’t been chosen by Adrestia HR, someone who would be loyal to her before the company. Their first meeting had also been one of her first forays into the lower city, and one of the only times she’d ever gone there alone. To the megacorps, Byleth was nothing more than an unknown mercenary, but Edelgard had almost immediately been struck by her quiet competence, her complete lack of any desire to judge.

She didn’t care about the politics of the megacorps, the powerplays and the backroom deals. She had no stake in who did what - only in doing her job, and doing it right. Even Hubert had eventually come around on her - reluctantly, of course - after a deep dive into her background to be certain she had no ulterior motives.

She wasn’t on Adrestia’s payroll. She had always been employed directly by Edelgard, and in the years since Edelgard had found her, she’d proven her worth. She was the best bodyguard Edelgard could have hoped for, and one of the few people she trusted completely. 

“Are you glad?” Byleth’s question was without inflection, without judgement. That gave Edelgard the space to really consider her answer, to decide how she felt about Dimitri’s survival, about his anger and the strange man he’d become. She knew that Byleth would not judge her, and so she could be honest.

Was she glad? She knew that she should be. Dimitri had been a friend, once upon a time - almost as close as a sibling, given their parents’ involvement. They’d played together, they’d shared tutors. There weren’t that many other heirs to giant megacorps, and because of that they’d understood each other in a way that many of their friends were unable to. She’d liked Dimitri. She had cried when he died - when they all died.

But they were both vastly different people now. The world felt different, though Edelgard knew that was only because now she saw it more clearly than she’d been able to as a child.

She didn’t know if the world had a place for Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd anymore. She didn’t know if he wanted the place that had been meant for him, and what it would mean for her if he did. She didn’t know if he wanted anything besides vengeance for his family. She didn’t know if he would ever decide she did not share some of the blame for that.

She didn’t know if he was right.

But as she gazed out over the city and thought of the boy she’d once known, his careful smile and his tempered friendship, she knew her answer.

“Yes.”

Dimitri wasn’t the boy she’d known, the friend, the almost-brother. But he was alive, and whatever else might lie between them, she could not find it within herself to see that as a bad thing.

“I am.” She breathed out, accepting that, feeling the echo of her grief from long ago and her relief when she’d seen him in that dingy noodle shop tonight. Even in the face of his anger, she had been relieved. She still was.

She felt Byleth’s hand on her shoulder, strong but gentle, and Edelgard gave in to her desire to lean into that touch. She tried not to, at least not as often as she might like, but she could not deny that Byleth had become a source of comfort to her. It had happened long ago, without her realizing it.

Byleth never seemed to mind. Difficult as she might be to read at times, she accepted Edelgard’s moments of weakness with as much equanimity as she did everything else.

Edelgard knew that she was immensely lucky to have people she could trust. Hubert would never betray her, and though Ferdinand liked to challenge her, when the chips were down he was adamantly on her side as well. She had other allies in Adrestia as well, and she knew better than to take them for granted.

But Byleth was something else. Someone who didn’t care about how well she ran the company, someone who wasn’t always watching to be sure she didn’t show weakness. Instead she protected Edelgard, listened to her, gave her quiet comfort.

Was it any wonder that Edelgard had feelings for her?

But there was no room for that right now. Edelgard knew that they were inching closer to danger the longer she associated with Claude - and now Dimitri. Those working behind the scenes were sure to catch on sooner or later. They had to put their plan into motion quickly, before it all fell apart.

Reluctantly, Edelgard straightened, pulling away from Byleth’s touch. “I’d better get to work.” In the reflection of light on the glass, her eyes met Byleth’s. Byleth nodded and let her hand fall.

When Edelgard was in the office, Byleth normally had more freedom to do as she pleased, since they had their own security. But this time she stayed close, both of them aware that Adrestia’s internal security could have been compromised - that it almost certainly contained agents there specifically to keep an eye on Edelgard. To make sure that their investment was paying off.

Edelgard had long since decided that she did not wish to be anyone’s tool anymore.

She took a seat at her desk and got to work.

She had a company to run, of course - on any given day there were a hundred things that needed her attention. Today was no different, and she took care of a few pressing issues before she was able to begin her part of their plan.

It seemed silly, even frivolous, when she thought of it. Claude and Dimitri would break into Blaiddyd Industries and make their way to the vault. It would be dangerous, difficult, vitally important.

Meanwhile, Edelgard herself would be throwing a party.

She set it up as quickly as she could, choosing the soonest date possible, paying extra so that preparations would be rushed. Then she sent the invites, steely-eyed and uncompromising.

No one would turn down an invitation to an event thrown by the head of Adrestia. Especially not when she teased a ‘surprise announcement’. The party would draw out everyone who was anyone among the megacorps - though Edelgard really only cared about catching a few people in that net. Everyone else could come and eat and drink on her dime, she didn’t particularly care.

So long as Cornelia came, drawing all attention away from the Blaiddyd Industries headquarters for the night.

And so long as her uncle came, so that she could keep an eye on him.

Edelgard didn’t know who else was involved with their group, though she had some suspicions. If they pulled this off, she’d find out, and then it would be all about moving to crush them thoroughly before they could do the same to her.

The whole thing took her a few days to set up, days during which she went about her work as necessary, with Byleth staying close. Claude stayed in contact with her via another throwaway email - it wasn’t safe to be seen together, particularly not right now. He was still doing his part, though, tracking what he could and researching all kinds of odd things.

He was also spreading rumors about Edelgard’s surprise announcement, which seemed to entertain him greatly. She didn’t actually have one - if necessary she’d unveil a new product, there was always something that was nearly ready for launch - but the fiction drew attention, which was what they wanted. Claude’s rumors got more and more ridiculous as time went on, culminating in something about Edelgard planning to announce that she was giving up her position and moving to a nunnery. Edelgard told him to settle down after that, because no one would believe such nonsense, but that same afternoon Ferdinand had come to her office, wide-eyed and vaguely offended, to ask if she’d truly discovered religion.

She’d told him to stop reading gossip feeds on company time, silently cursed Claude’s name, and gone back to work. They needed to put this into action soon, because boredom clearly led Claude von Riegan to chaos.

She did not hear from Dimitri, nor did she try to contact him, either. Part of her wanted to - wanted to see if they could mend things, if they could ever come to trust one another. The rest of her thought it was best if Claude was their only point of contact. Would Dimitri disappear into the lower city after this? Or would he attempt to reclaim Blaiddyd Industries? Would they become enemies, truly - was this alliance only temporary?

The same, she supposed, could be said of Claude. He was doing this to secure his position, to ensure that Leicester was safe and strong when he took over. Would they be enemies then, or merely have the same relationship of distant competitors that Edelgard shared with Claude’s grandfather?

She didn’t know. What they found at Blaiddyd could destabilize everything, for better or for worse. But she could not abide the thought of not knowing - the thought of these people lurking in the shadows, waiting for the moment to turn their crosshairs on her or the ones she cared about.

So she simply would not allow that to happen.

When everything was ready, she sent Claude an email that contained nothing more than a date and time. He didn’t need it. He already knew when her party was, when Blaiddyd Industries would be without its usurping leader and ripe for the picking. But now he knew it was ready - that it was time.

Before Edelgard knew it, the night of the party arrived.

She had attended hundreds of these events before, ever since she was a child. She didn’t particularly like them, but she wasn’t sure anyone really did. It was just a part of her job, really. Attend high-profile events, see and be seen, lay the groundwork for future business deals and alliances. Edelgard could do it in her sleep.

But this was different, and as the evening began, she found herself having to keep a tight hold on her nerves. There was plenty of security, of course, with Adrestia’s private security forces taking the lead - but given the amount of people here, nearly everyone had brought their own bodyguards as well. It was standard practice, ensuring that any attack on one person would be met with far more force, as well as a way to show off the power and wealth of those attending.

Edelgard thought it was rather stupid, and mostly didn’t pay attention to it. This time, though, she found her eyes tracking strange faces, wondering just who might be working for those shadowy forces behind the scenes. It was impossible to know, and so it could be anyone.

Byleth stayed near her, face blank and stance professional, fading into the background the way all the best bodyguards did. Edelgard found her presence more comforting than she was able to say.

She danced the usual dance, greeting people with a smile, circulating through the room. Never spending too long with anyone. She was between groups, alone with only Byleth near, when Hubert unobtrusively stepped close.

“They’ve begun,” he said, eyes flickering to his wrist implant and then away.

“Good,” Edelgard said under her breath. Hubert knew everything, of course, as her right-hand man and most trusted assistant. She’d tasked him with staying in contact with Claude during the evening - it required too much close attention for her to do it and still host this party, especially given what she hoped to observe. “And look. There she is.”

Across the slowly-filling ballroom, Cornelia Arnim had just entered.

Edelgard looked at the woman for only a moment, keeping her glance passing and casual. She didn’t want to show too much interest - and in fact, she was less interested in what Cornelia was doing (or wearing, and what a ridiculous dress that was), than the reaction to her arrival.

It was Edelgard’s uncle that she looked at. Volkhart von Arundel had arrived early in the evening, along with the rest of Adrestia’s executives, and was now in jocular conversation with the man who ran one of their subsidiaries. Edelgard saw the moment when he looked away, when his eyes met Cornelia’s. She saw the slight, barely-there nod they exchanged.

Whether they were working together hadn’t really been in question before, but now she knew for sure. She would need to keep an eye on them - but they were both here, and with Cornelia had come a decently-sized security detail.

Good. Claude and Dimitri should be well on their way by now. This ought to make it much easier.  


  


* * *

  


“And… there we go.” Claude grinned up at Dimitri, pleased with himself. “The outside sensors by our entrance are running a repeating loop, with just enough random variation that it won’t be obvious. If they’re good, they’ll figure it out eventually - but this should buy us more than enough time.” He turned back to the screen that was projected from his wrist implant - no, his wrist cuff.

It had taken Dimitri a day or two of living in Claude’s penthouse before he realized that Claude did not actually have a wrist implant. He’d seen people use cuffs before, but it was increasingly rare - it was just much more convenient to have an implant. But Dimitri’s surprise had been tempered quickly when he realized that Claude had not just one, but multiple cuffs, each apparently optimized for different tasks.

The one Dimitri had seen most often was a slim, subtle thing, designed to imitate a bracelet and hide easily under clothes. Claude used it for business, accessing his Riegan Holdings account and taking business calls. He’d gone into the office once or twice while Dimitri stayed in the penthouse, but mostly he’d worked from home, deciding it was better to lay low until this was all finished.

To Dimitri’s surprise, Claude had turned out to be a rather pleasant person to share space with. He talked a lot at times, but he seemed adept at sensing when silence or space was needed, and then he would disappear to the kitchen or allow Dimitri to retreat to the bedroom - _Claude’s_ bedroom, which he had utterly ceded to Dimitri without an ounce of concern.

And the talking… wasn’t so bad. Dimitri had, perhaps, missed the comfort of having someone near ever since he’d declined to join Dedue in Duscur. Claude von Riegan was wildly different than his quiet, serious friend, but that wasn’t bad either. Claude treated him like a person, and seemed to find a certain delight in saying things that would make him blush.

It should have been annoying. Instead, Dimitri found himself flattered that Claude would spend so much time and attention on him.

Dimitri was no fool. He was aware that he ought not get attached to Claude, for a hundred different reasons. And so he had to be glad that they were finally carrying out their mission - that soon they would be parting, and all temptation would be removed. Any regret he might feel over that was not worth studying closely.

Claude tapped a few commands into the screen in front of him. This cuff was wildly different than the one he’d worn to conduct Leicester business. It wasn’t like the cheap ones Dimitri had seen in the underworld, either, worn by people who couldn’t afford even the most basic implant. He thought it had likely been custom-made, as it clearly had functions he’d never seen before.

Dimitri didn’t know that much about hacking. He’d worked with a few people on jobs before who styled themselves that way, who made money off breaking into secure systems, stealing valuable information or helping others commit crimes. He knew that if they’d been truly talented, they would have been snapped up by the megacorps no matter what shady past they might have, so they must have been of only average talents.

He’d met a more talented one, the counterfeiter who’d forged Dedue’s papers, a young man called Ashe. He’d done it as a favor to Dedue, but as far as Dimitri was aware, Ashe was now employed by one of the smaller corporations under the wing of Blaiddyd Industries. The corps employed practically anyone with actual talent, which meant that Claude certainly had access to any number of skilled hackers.

So why, then, had he cultivated the skill himself? As the Leicester heir, he’d have little need for such a thing, and even if he had a personal interest there was no reason to take the time to truly hone his hacking skills. Not when he could pay someone to do the same thing, and spend his free time wining and dining other megacorp heirs.

But Claude had come out of nowhere, an unknown who had risen to power suddenly. Dimitri didn’t know where, or who, he had been before. He hadn’t asked, just as, after that initial night, Claude had not asked him for any specifics about where he’d been or what he’d been doing all this time. He hadn’t asked why Dimitri hadn’t tried to retake his position, hadn’t asked why he’d taken the advanced self-defense training he’d gotten since he was a child and turned that into a mercenary career.

He remembered what Claude had said. _It’s not so easy, surviving._ Perhaps that was all the explanation that was truly needed.

“All right,” Claude said, a satisfied little smile on his face. “Besides the sensors, I’ve set our IDs to get us past the first few layers of security on the way in. I can’t do more than that yet, they’re at least smart enough to section things off.” He sounded amused. “Once we’re inside, I should be able to access more through the staff terminals.” He tapped his wrist cuff again, the screen disappearing. “Ready?”

Dimitri nodded. His hand tightened around the grip of his lance, tucked beneath the _Rowe Contractors_ jumpsuits they were wearing. The subsidiary handled janitorial work and mechanical repairs for the Blaiddyd headquarters, so the outfits combined with Claude’s hacking their IDs would hopefully serve as a disguise until they could get in far enough.

He had few illusions that they would get in and out without any violence, but Claude had made it clear he wanted to do so as much as possible. Dimitri was there to bypass the DNA lock, not to fight. He had to remind himself of that, because part of him wanted very much to commit unhealthy levels of violence.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Entering the Blaiddyd headquarters after so many years stirred up emotions and memories that Dimitri found difficult to lock away again. He’d walked these halls so many times. Lambert had always believed that Dimitri should know every part of their business, that he should at least be aware of everything. And so he’d been coming to the headquarters as long as he could remember, since he was old enough to walk - and probably before that.

The building was huge, towering up into the sky, with basements and subbasements down below. Most employees only saw parts of it - they only had permission to enter certain areas, and why would they bother roaming? Maintenance crews and janitorial had more freedom, but even they usually stuck to a certain range of floors.

But Dimitri had been all over. That had simply been how Lambert ran his company - he had a gift for it, an easy smile and a charismatic presence, and he could walk into any department and greet people by name. He’d made it look easy, though Dimitri had seen the work behind it - had seen how he’d pull up personnel files before visiting, and then take notes afterwards. _Devon, the HR manager, just had another grandchild. Cheng, associate engineer, has nearly finished his degree program._ And then the next time he visited, he’d speak to them like they’d never left his mind, asking about whether the new grandbaby had learned to walk yet, congratulating the engineer on his excellent exam scores.

And Dimitri, following at his heels as soon as he was old enough, had seen it all.

He had noticed everything, had dreamed of being a president like his father, beloved by so many. He knew now that it hadn’t been that easy - that his father’s attitude had alienated some, who believed any man as rich as him shouldn’t bother learning a peon’s name. That wasn’t why he’d been killed - Dimitri knew that now, too - but it was why so few among the upper class had done anything more than performatively mourn Lambert’s death.

He could never be like his father now, but he could fight for justice in his memory.

Claude had the blueprints of the building and was leading them on a circuitous route to the vault, avoiding as many cams and sensors as possible. He could hack them if needed, but avoiding them to begin with was smarter. Dimitri followed at his heels, eye hungrily taking in the familiar corridors.

He could have led them there without the blueprints, he realized quickly. He remembered everything about this place, all those hours spent at his father’s side, learning everything he could. There had been some minor remodels, mostly cosmetic, but nearly everything was the same. It was like walking through a dream of the past, and at times Claude’s presence was the only thing that kept him anchored in time.

It was evening, so most of the employees had left already. With everyone gone and Cornelia’s attention - and presence - elsewhere, the security forces seemed both light and relaxed. Dimitri did not think that would have happened if Fraldarius Shielding & Security had still been in charge - but Rodrigue Fraldarius’ had been one of the companies to cut its ties to Blaiddyd after the massacre. That had left Cornelia with whatever she could get, which worked in their favor.

They got down to the subbasement that the vault was in without trouble. It took longer than a direct assault might have, but Claude was too cautious for such a thing. He moved carefully, pausing often to access the corporate system from terminals along the way. Dimitri did not entirely know what he was doing, but the look of absent concentration became familiar and oddly reassuring. _Claude_ clearly knew what he was doing. He had a plan.

And his plan was going smoothly.

No alarms went off, Claude finding and disabling anything that might alert security. Cams were set on loops or disabled just long enough for them to pass. Claude altered their ID passes more than once, giving them the ability to swipe through doors that ought to have remained locked.

He was _good_. It was remarkable, really. Claude’s skill got them through the building and down one of the stairwells - the elevators all had too many security systems - straight to the hallway outside the room that led to the vault.

And that was where he turned to Dimitri. 

“Okay,” Claude said, glancing at the screen of his wrist cuff and then back at Dimitri. “There are three guards inside. I can disable the sensors and cams long enough for us to get in and out, but we need to take them out before any of them can manually activate an alarm. We’ll have to be fast, I’m sure they all have panic buttons.”

“But they probably aren’t particularly well trained,” Dimitri said. It was what he had observed of the few security personnel they’d passed on their way down. They had not been properly alert. Though their disguises were adequate and Claude’s ID hacking excellent, they had not looked or inquired closely enough to count as even a cursory attempt at doing their jobs. It was possible the guards down here were better, but he doubted it. Why, when no one could get into the vault without the right DNA? “I’ll take care of it.”

Claude, who had already been easing his gun out of its concealment beneath the maintenance jumpsuit, blinked at him. “I can help -”

“You’ve already done enough.” In truth, Dimitri had little doubt that Claude would be helpful in a fight. He had been once already, and he was clearly trained in marksmanship and basic self-defense. But he had not spent the past five years fighting.

And he had not spent the past hour walking through halls filled with the ghosts of his family, wishing only to make someone pay for their deaths.

“Please, Claude. Allow me.”

Claude looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “They’re all yours.” Though he kept his gun in his hand, he stepped back from the door, making room for Dimitri to enter.

With no fanfare, Dimitri stepped through the door with his lance in his hand. His world narrowed to nothing but that room, nothing but the violence and anger simmering inside him. He did not wait for the guards to notice him, to look up from the screens that held gossip feeds and porn vids. He just moved, slamming his lance into one guard’s stomach and sending a brutal electric shock through him.

That was one down, only seconds after he’d entered the room. And he was right about their training. If they’d been experienced, they’d have gone for the alarms first. He wouldn’t have been able to stop them all in time - though distantly he was aware that Claude had entered the room behind him, gun raised, staying back but ready to intervene if needed. Likely he’d have shot them before their fingers could touch the screen. But neither of the remaining guards even tried.

One froze, then scrambled for the gun holster that rested on the desk near him, too far away to be ready for immediate use. The other had quicker instincts, but rather than lunge for the alarm he threw himself at Dimitri instead, hands balled into fists. He wore the sort of gloves Dimitri had seen before, fiber woven with nanobots that would solidify into steel plates or sharp blades during combat.

Dimitri processed that in less than a second and moved. He turned swiftly, letting the man’s initial punch glide past him, and angled his body so the next attack slammed into his body armor. He’d bruise beneath it, but the armor protected him from the blades and diffused the pressure across a larger area, kept him from any worse injury. He grabbed the man’s arm and pivoted hard. A sick sense of pleasure rushed through him when he heard the crack of bone, and then he caught the man’s head in his free hand and slammed it against the corner of the desk.

The man fell, leaving blood and hair behind. The final guard had fumbled his gun out of its holster and was raising it, but Dimitri was too fast. He launched himself over the desk easily, the blade of his lance crackling with electricity. It sliced through the cheap body armor that the guard wore easily, sending both the sharp metal blade and the electrical current through him in an instant.

He fell, and the room was quiet.

Dimitri’s breath was coming quickly. He steadied himself, checked to see that none of the guards were moving. At least two were dead, with the last unconscious, breath stuttering. He looked to Claude, wondering distantly if he would see horror on the other man’s face. If he would be disturbed by Dimitri’s ease with violence, with death.

But he was already at the desk terminal, accessing the guards’ records. He didn’t even glance at the mess of blood on the corner of the desk or the body on the floor. When he felt Dimitri’s gaze on him, though, he looked up and flashed a smile. “Nice moves. No alerts sent, no alarms set off. We’re good to go.”

The smile warmed Dimitri, as did the easy compliment. Was he so unused to friendly words that Claude’s affected him more than they should, or was it the fact that Claude was the one saying them? He thought he knew the answer, but was not quite ready to admit it.

“Let’s go in, then.” Dimitri stood before the wall panel that would provide them entry to the vault. He remembered standing there next to his father, Lambert quietly explaining that this was where their most important files were kept - research that was too sensitive to release, plans for products that were still developed, contracts with foreign governments. The servers inside weren’t connected to any uplink, completely sequestered from the net. Totally safe from hackers.

Unless, of course, a Blaiddyd let them in.

Dimitri pressed his hand to the panel. He felt a sharp prick in the meat of his palm as the needle embedded there took a sample of his blood. He did not flinch. There were far less painful ways to take DNA, but Lambert had preferred this one. Dimitri could not have said why, exactly, except that his father had always spoken of keeping in mind the weight of their obligations to the people, the world. Perhaps the pain was a reminder of that.

The light above the panel flickered from red to green, and there was a soft click as the door unlocked. Something in Dimitri relaxed. The permissions had not been changed - a quiet fear he’d had, despite knowing the unlikeliness of it. He nodded to Claude and pushed the door open, and they entered the vault.

In truth, it wasn’t that remarkable inside. It was a small room, only large enough for the computer equipment it held and a desk for the terminal to rest on. Once the door shut behind them, the screen flickered to life. Claude took a seat at the desk and Dimitri stood next to him, dividing his attention between the door and the screen.

Quickly and efficiently, Claude hooked his wrist cuff up to the terminal. Before he even opened any of the files, he’d already set them to download - smart, Dimitri thought, in case they were interrupted. Then he began to flick through them, looking for what they’d come for - proof of a plot, of a group working behind the scenes. Proof of _something_.

What they found was far more than Dimitri had expected.

There was that proof - archived communications between Cornelia and a number of other people, names Dimitri did not recognize and some he did. Some old, speaking in plain language about the betrayal and murder of his family in a way that made fury rise in Dimitri’s blood. Some newer, describing plots against smaller companies - and a growing conspiracy to deliver Leicester into the hands of these creatures as well.

Claude did not blink. He had expected this, Dimitri knew, and was unfazed. “She must have kept these for blackmail purposes,” he murmured under his breath, “just in case. But this, with your dad, it seems like they accelerated their plans, and that’s why it was so blatant. I wonder why?” He dug deeper, half in a trance as he worked, the download ticking away.

And then he found it.

“This code,” he said, and Dimitri could tell by the way his back straightened that it was something big. “It’s not finished, but the documentation… Dimitri, it looks like before he died your father was working on a program that would have revolutionized wrist implants. All of our implants run basically the same firmware right now, there’s really just one company that’s cornered the market - they’re really proprietary, no one’s been able to crack it and make copies, and all the other options are much worse. So Lambert built something to replace it instead.”

Dimitri nodded. “It would have made a lot of money, as well. That company had good reason to want my father dead. Could they be working with the people we’re looking for?”

“Almost certainly.” Claude was still scrolling through the documentation. “Agartha… I don’t know much about them. They’re a small company, but thanks to cornering the implant market they’ve resisted being taken over by any of the megacorps.” He frowned. “It looks like Lambert, or someone working for him, found some kind of… fault, or something, in the wrist implants people were wearing at the time, and that’s why he started building this alternative. It’s not clear what it was, though.”

It was not a surprise that Dimitri’s family had been murdered because of money and power. Indeed, Dimitri had expected nothing less. And yet still it stung, still it made fury rise within him again. He would make them pay.

“Huh.” Claude was looking at an email now. “This is weird.”

“What is it?”

“Lambert was planning to release this new firmware for free. He wasn’t going to charge.” Claude looked up, brow furrowed. “Why would he do that? Even if your dad was a great guy, he was still a CEO. Giving this kind of thing out for free would be throwing money away. That fault in the Agarthan firmware… it must have been something big, if he was willing to give away so much to fix it.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know enough about implants to be able to tell. But we’ll transfer all this back to my servers and have time to go over it. I bet I can find an expert to tell us what was going on.”

Dimitri nodded. When it came to something technical like this, if it was beyond Claude’s sphere of knowledge then he himself had absolutely no chance of figuring it out. 

The light on Claude’s wrist cuff flashed green as the download finished. Claude closed the screen and unhooked the connection, pulling his wrist down over the cuff again. “There we go. Now we just have to get out of here.” He shut the terminal down and smiled up at Dimitri. “We’ll figure out the implant stuff and track down everyone mentioned in these emails. It won’t be long now.”

It was strange how easily Claude’s words calmed him. It should not have been that way - Dimitri had carried his anger, his loss for so long that it was part of him. But now justice felt like it was within reach, and he knew that it was because of Claude. Because of Claude, and perhaps also because of Edelgard.

He owed them both. But it was Claude’s smile that soothed his anger.

They left the vault. Dimitri turned to ensure it was locked again. His back was only turned for a moment, but Claude’s quick intake of breath was all the warning he needed to know that it had been too long.

“How annoying,” said a voice. Familiar and chilling, one that immediately ignited the anger in his blood again. One he hadn’t heard in years. 

Cornelia Arnim.

“Claude von Riegan, sticking his nose in my business,” she said, as Dimitri turned to face her. He knew what he would see. She had three guards at her back, far better outfitted and trained than the ones he’d taken out, the ones who were still slumped on the floor now. They had their guns out, barrels trained on him and Claude. Cornelia held no gun, her arms crossed, a smug look on her face. “Oh well. I’ll just have to teach you a lesson.”


	4. Chapter 4

Though Edelgard missed the moment Cornelia left, she realized it very quickly. She’d been keeping an eye on her, after all, more than anyone else who was attending. She knew that if Claude and Dimitri slipped up, if anyone raised any alarm, she’d be gone in an instant.

But Ferdinand had distracted her at exactly the wrong moment, and when she turned back, Cornelia was gone.

A chill went down her spine. Blaiddyd headquarters wasn’t too far. Cornelia could be there in minutes with a competent driver, which she surely had. She scanned the crowd, locked eyes with Hubert, and a moment later he was at her side.

“Something tipped her off,” Edelgard said, under her breath. She fixed a smile on her face as a dignitary from the Brigid embassy passed her. “Make sure Claude knows she’s on her way.”

But Hubert shook his head, expression darkening. “Their signal cut off moments ago. They must be in the vault. I can’t reach them there.”

Edelgard wanted to kick something. Instead she cursed quietly. Of all the times - 

But maybe that was why. Maybe they’d had eyes on them from the beginning. Both she and Claude had been well aware of the possibility, though they’d done what they could to avoid it. But if that was the case, then this was the time for a trap to spring shut. This was the time for their enemies to strike, in the moment when it would do the most damage.

“Keep trying,” she told Hubert. “Maybe they’ll get our warning before she gets there. And send a squad of our security.”

There wasn’t much point to it. They’d be horribly outnumbered. But she had to do _something._ Hubert nodded and slipped back into the crowd, finding a quiet spot to do as she’d ordered.

Edelgard took a breath, steadying herself. She needed to show a flawless exterior, to hide any weakness. There were too many eyes on her.

“They’ll be fine,” Byleth said. She said it under her breath, only audible because she was so close to Edelgard. “Have faith.” Her eyes roved the room. It was clear that Cornelia’s departure had put her on high alert.

Despite that, Arundel managed to sidle up to Edelgard almost without notice. He was already close when Byleth stiffened, hand drifting to the gun under her blazer.

“I’m sure you thought you were being very clever,” he said, and he smiled as if he were merely a kind uncle offering his niece friendly words. A chill went down Edelgard’s spine. “Did you think we didn’t know you were meeting with Claude von Riegan?”

“I thought no such thing,” Edelgard said, which was true. Her mind spun, wondering how much they knew. How much _he_ knew. It couldn’t be much, not really. Their circle was confined to her, Claude, Dimitri, Hubert, and Byleth. All people who Edelgard trusted - or at least, she trusted that they would not betray the plan to Arundel and his allies. So what did he know, then?

“We weren’t sure what you thought you were doing,” Arundel continued, answering her unasked question. “But now I see that you’re simply sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Or was it that Riegan boy’s idea? You should know better than to listen to someone like him.” He smiled at her. “Did you think you could get away from the debt you owe? You belong to us, niece. It will be such a sad thing when the Riegan heir is found dead so young. And without even getting into the vault.”

Edelgard had to hope that Hubert could get a message through, that her security forces would help - but then she realized.

He didn’t know about Dimitri.

He had no idea they’d found the lost Blaiddyd heir. No idea he was by Claude’s side right at that moment.

“Not even that boy can crack the Blaiddyd DNA lock,” Arundel said, so sure of himself. Edelgard wanted to laugh, but forced herself to swallow it down. The less he knew, the better. She couldn’t give anything away.

“What’s the point of all of this?” she said instead, tense. “Money? Power?”

“Both,” Arundel said easily, “and more. We’ve been in control of this city, this country, all of it - for longer than you’ve been alive. We keep things in their place. You aren’t going to change that. Claude von Riegan will die, and soon you’ll understand that obedience is the only intelligent choice.”

“I have no intention of being obedient to you,” Edelgard said, drawing herself up to meet his gaze.

He smiled. “Shall I show you how wrong you are?” 

And then pain was lancing through her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak - she was completely immobilized, her nerve endings on fire. She couldn’t even collapse. It was as if she had been frozen, her body still and tense, her eyes wide with anger. Even like this, she hid her fear - even like this, she knew better than to show Arundel any weakness.

He laughed, and he no longer looked anything like the uncle she’d known as a child. His eyes were cruel, his smile cold. Had he always been this, or had power and dark tech turned him into this? She didn’t know. There was no way of knowing.

“You see,” he said, “the power we have.” He leaned in. Anyone around them would have seen an uncle and his niece, the man who had supported her and advised her for years. Perhaps she seemed stiff, seemed tense, but beyond that who would even guess at the pain that lanced through her?

How could he do this? What kind of control did he have?

Then, suddenly, he was the one who went still. Edelgard blinked past the pain to see Byleth behind him. She couldn’t see the gun, but she knew her bodyguard - knew the way she held herself, the way she fought. That gun was at Arundel’s back, hidden from view, pressed against his spine.

“Let her go,” Byleth said, and there was a level of emotion there that Edelgard rarely heard. 

“Or you’ll shoot me right here?” Arundel’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed very still. He couldn’t read Byleth, Edelgard knew. Hardly anyone could, save perhaps herself. It was an incredible asset, those seemingly dead eyes, that blank expression. Even Arundel couldn’t brush her off - not with that gun at his back.

But he didn’t let her go, either.

“In front of everyone?” he said. “When I’m only having a pleasant conversation with my niece? How will you spin that, I wonder?”

Byleth’s expression did not move an inch, but she didn’t pull the trigger yet, either. She looked to Edelgard instead, and their eyes met, and then light burst through the room as every screen lit up.

  


* * *

  


“Sticking my nose in your business?” Claude said with a laugh. “I was just going for a walk.”

His mind spun, trying to find a way out of this. Three men with guns in view - Dimitri could take them out, if they were properly distracted. But how? All he had was his words, and he wasn’t sure Cornelia would be weak to those.

“A walk straight into my vault.” Cornelia crossed her arms, rolling her eyes theatrically. “I’d love to know how you got in. That thing was the pride of Blaiddyd, you know. DNA only, no way to bypass. You really must be cleverer than you look.”

“I pride myself on it,” Claude said, and he winked at her. Still trying to buy time, trying to find a route out of here for them.

But there wasn’t one. He just had to keep talking, and hope for an opportunity. At least she didn’t know who Dimitri was - at least it seemed she had no idea how they’d gotten into the vault. That was a small mercy. Perhaps, if nothing else, he would be able to get Dimitri out of here alive.

“Well, that’s all over now.” Cornelia smiled at him, smug and cruel. “Now the only question is where we’ll dump your body. We didn’t want to move on Leicester yet, but we were always going to get you out of the way. You really didn’t have a chance, you know? You have no idea the power we have.”

She was the sort who liked to gloat. Tedious, but useful - at least Claude could use it to buy a little more time. And maybe she would let something slip, something that he could use, something that could get them out of here.

If nothing else, he could satisfy his own curiosity before he died.

“Power? Come on. Blaiddyd’s a shell of a corp, these days. You’re coasting on the good reputation it had before you destroyed it. People respect it because of the Blaiddyds, not you.” Claude grinned. “And they’re all gone. Only a matter of time before the reputation is, too.”

Cornelia’s eyes narrowed, her smile turning colder. “I’ll wipe that name from history, sooner or later, and replace it with my own.” Next to Claude, Dimitri went tense with fury. For a moment, Claude feared he would be unable to stop himself from attacking, and then they would both go down in a hail of bullets. But he stayed still, though it clearly cost him much effort. “But since you insist on being a fool, let me show you what real power is.”

She tapped something in her hand, and Claude felt Dimitri go rigid next to him. He stayed still, not daring to chance a look, not wanting to take his eyes off of Cornelia or her gunmen.

“You see?” she said. “I imagine someone like you hates having control taken from them like this. But you’re mine now, both of you. Does it hurt? Try moving. It’ll get even worse.”

It didn’t hurt. Claude felt nothing but confusion. He could easily move if he pleased, he just knew better than to do so right now. But he wasn’t stupid enough to say so, wasn’t such a fool as to betray any advantage, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about.

But Dimitri was so still next to him, taking quick, pained breaths. As Claude began to put it together, Cornelia - with her need to gloat - laid it out for him.

“Since the beginning we’ve had a failsafe in all wrist implants. Doesn’t matter the manufacturer of the physical tech, not when the code is ours.” She raised her hand to show a slick little control device. “It can immobilize anyone - kill them, if we really want. _This_ is our real power.”

The cuff on Claude’s wrist suddenly seemed like the most conspicuous thing in the world. It was covered by his sleeve, flush against his wrist, hidden away. The only possible advantage he had, and he would just have to hope she didn’t notice before he was able to make a move.

But now it made sense. The fault that Lambert had found - maybe he hadn’t really understood what it was, or else he’d likely have gone public with it, but he’d known something was wrong. And he’d been planning to fix it, to take all their power away. No wonder they’d killed him.

Claude stayed as still as he could, did his best to imitate Dimitri’s tension and pain. At least he was a decent actor. He’d had to be.

“Why?” he said. He was curious, but mostly he just needed her to keep talking. He needed a distraction, something - anything. 

“Why?” Cornelia laughed, mocking. “Why not? All that matters in this world is power. We’ll rule you all from the shadows, and mold the world into the shape we want for it.” Her smile fell away and her eyes narrowed. “And you have no place in that world. Now you have a choice.”

Claude suppressed his desire to sigh, to roll his eyes. He already knew he wouldn’t like this choice.

“Tell me how you got around the DNA lock, destroy any files you have, and I’ll make it quick. Or don’t, and you can suffer until you break.” Her eyes flickered to Dimitri and then away, dismissive. “Your bodyguard, too.” She flicked something on the control device. Dimitri gasped, a pained sound, and slipped to his knees. Claude imitated as best he could. He could do nothing but this, in hopes that it would buy them time.

But he hated himself a little for it. For allowing Dimitri to suffer. There was no other choice, and they were probably both going to die in the end anyway. He told himself that, but it didn’t ease his guilt.

“Well?” Cornelia asked, a poisonous little smile on her lips. “Do you feel like cooperating yet?”

Claude opened his mouth, ready to spin lies. Unless she was a skilled hacker - which he was pretty sure she wasn’t - he could probably draw out a meaningless explanation long enough. Long enough to hope for a distraction, a single moment.

That was all he needed. He knew, with a brutal clarity, that he was going to die here. There was no way to save himself. He was free, but his gun would give him only one shot before Cornelia or her men gunned him down. He was under no illusions that her death would keep them from killing him.

He would find a moment, and then he would send everything he’d downloaded to his wrist cuff to the net.

He’d planned for something like this, the possibility of it. He always tried to plan for every outcome, even the worst ones, and so he’d set it up in advance. A program, small and efficient, which would upload everything in his cuff’s memory. Upload it, and then broadcast it widely. Send it to every address he had access to, which was a lot. Send it to his social media accounts, to the gossip feeds.

Everywhere.

He might die, but everyone would know what was happening and who was behind it. Someone would take up the fight - Claude believed that wholeheartedly. So long as he got the information out, there would be people who knew what to do with it. Edelgard, he knew, would not give up on this.

He only regretted that he had no way to save Dimitri, who did not deserve this. Who had never deserved any of this.

“Ma’am,” a voice came from behind Cornelia. “Adrestian security forces are here.” Cornelia looked away, and so did one of her men, and that was enough.

“I’m sorry,” Claude said, and it was meant for Dimitri - an apology for a man who Claude had genuinely come to like, who had spent the last few days with him, a quiet and somewhat uncertain presence. He’d been easy to be around, and Claude had had no one so close to him for that long. He’d expected it to be difficult, uncomfortable. But Dimitri demanded nothing of him and asked for little. He had shown already that he would protect Claude, that he was the farthest thing in the world from a threat, no matter how deliberately intimidating he might make himself look.

Claude liked him, liked his serious nature and his attempts at trust, liked the way he blushed every time Claude teased him. If they’d had more time, he might have done more - might have seen if he could coax Dimitri into his bed, or at least steal a kiss. Dimitri was handsome, but it was more than that. There was a strange sort of possibility there, something that he couldn’t put his finger on. Something that could have become real, if he’d let it. If he’d tried.

But now they were out of time, and Claude could only regret that they hadn’t had the chance.

And so he apologized - for not being able to find a way out, not being able to save them, or at least to save him. For putting Dimitri through even more pain. He apologized, because this would be their death sentence. And he couldn’t even look over, couldn’t even meet Dimitri’s eyes, because he had to do this before they realized.

At the same moment he spoke, his hand was already moving. It was only a few taps to the screen, nothing more - he’d made sure of that. He’d known this might happen, that he might only have a second to activate his failsafe. He tapped _unlock_ and then upload, and then he closed the screen, locking it away again. His security was robust, of course. By the time they’d cracked the code and stopped the upload, it would already be over. Even if they smashed the cuff, some of the information would get through. He’d made sure of that.

A feeling of relief flooded through Claude at the same moment that one of the remaining men shouted, “Hey!” and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Claude’s shoulder, the force of it slamming him against the desk behind him. White-hot pain exploded through him. He expected another, expected the second man to start shooting. Cornelia and the third man were turning, another gun being raised, and certainly that was the last sight he would see.

But then Dimitri rushed into them, his lance raised, the force of his movement scattering the men with ease. Claude watched in shock as one fell, electricity sparking through him, and then another, throat cut with the sharp blade of the lance. Dimitri fought like a fury. It wasn’t like before, when they’d attacked relatively untrained guards who weren’t expecting them - these were fully-trained men who knew exactly what they were facing.

And still Dimitri cut through them like they were nothing.

He took a bullet in the thigh. Claude saw it, saw the impact, and he saw Dimitri barely register it and keep moving. He cut down the gunman, leaving his lance impaled in the man’s chest, and turned on Cornelia, whose eyes were wide with anger and confusion.

“How -” was all she had time to say, because Dimitri did not hesitate.

He didn’t demand answers or reasons. He didn’t care about apologies, begging, or what her last words might be. He only caught her by the throat, snarled, and crushed the life out of her.

It happened too fast for Claude to help, even if he hadn’t been shot in his dominant arm. He could only watch. When he realized, distantly, that he wasn’t going to be shot again, he brought up his other hand to cover the wound. He’d be all right, he thought. It didn’t seem to have hit anything vital. It was extremely painful and plenty bloody, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been shot before.

He’d be… fine.

Which seemed impossible, because moments before he’d been certain he was going to die.

Dimitri let Cornelia’s body fall as if she was nothing. He turned to Claude, and Claude wanted to tell him not to, tell him that certainly more men would be coming - but then he heard the sounds of shots outside, the sounds of fighting. Adrestian forces. Edelgard’s men.

On his wrist cuff blinked the words: _4 missed messages: Hubert von Vestra._

Claude wanted to laugh, couldn’t stop himself from smiling, not even when Dimitri knelt down next to him, the fury dissipating from his eyes to be replaced with concern.

“Claude?” He reached out, then stopped himself, likely realizing there was nothing he could do about the gunshot wound. He wasn’t bleeding from the bullet that had hit his thigh - he’d worn armor there. Claude probably should have worn more armor. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Claude said, and smiled at him. His wrist cuff beeped, signaling a successful upload. “Better than fine. How did you…” 

He saw the answer before he’d finished his question. Dimitri’s wrist was bleeding freely, the only visible injury on him. And there on the floor, where Cornelia had frozen him, was a small metal chip.

He’d dug out his own wrist implant.

“You’re incredible,” Claude said, and of all things, Dimitri blushed. How could this man be the same one who had just killed four people? Claude should probably have been more bothered by that, but he really, really wasn’t.

“Stay still,” Dimitri said, almost scolding. He took Claude’s gun and kept his eye on the door, but his other hand came to cover Claude’s, placing more pressure against the wound. “You just got shot.”

“We did it.” It was beginning to sink in, through the pain. They would survive this, and the truth was out now. He knew Edelgard would be going through with her part of the plan, rounding up everyone implicated in the files Claude had released onto the net. Plenty of them were probably at her event right then - it would be easy.

Dimitri was silent for a moment, and then, remarkably, he smiled. “Yes.” His hand on Claude’s was warm, his smile warmer, and Claude didn’t want to look away.

Then a group of soldiers in Adrestian-branded body armor rushed in, and after that everything happened fast. Before Claude knew it, he was in a medical van being tended to by Edelgard’s medic team, trying his best to ignore them all while he worked to respond to the flood of messages coming in.

This battle was over, but the war was just beginning. Across the van, for just a moment, he met Dimitri’s eye. 

They would handle whatever came.

  


* * *

  


“You’ve caused a remarkable amount of chaos,” Edelgard said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you did this all on purpose so Leicester could take advantage of it.” Her words may have sounded harsh, but Dimitri could see the smile that curved the very edges of her lips. It was so familiar, so reminiscent of the young girl he’d once known.

The anger that had seethed within him for so long wasn’t gone, but he thought he was directing it toward the proper places now.

“That would have been pretty smart of me,” Claude said with a sharp-edged grin. But Dimitri saw the hidden sincerity in that, as well. Likely Claude would be happy if they all thought he’d had ulterior motives, but Dimitri didn’t think either of them were likely to fall for it anytime soon. “But I think Leicester will be taking a different direction from now on.”

“I saw that your grandfather is stepping down next month,” Edelgard said. “A different direction, indeed.”

They’d met someplace neutral again, but it would be some time before they could do so without eyes on them. After Claude’s upload had exploded information all across the net, their activities had been the hottest topic on all the newsfeeds - and most of the gossip feeds, too. The world had changed in an instant.

Edelgard’s security forces, led by Byleth, had immediately disabled their wrist implants and captured quite a number of high-profile members of companies across the city - including plenty within Adrestia and Leicester. They’d decimated the secret ranks of Agarthan employees, who it seemed had been infiltrating the city’s megacorps for years. All in pursuit of power, all to have everything under their thumb.

But there had been more than a few who’d evaded the net. Those who hadn’t been at Edelgard’s party, those who kept even more carefully to the shadows. They’d be hunting down Agarthans for years, it was likely, and if Dimitri was honest - he did not mind the prospect of that.

It gave him a purpose, a goal. It gave him a reason to fight, and a reason to believe that he could force justice to be done. It gave him a reason to be something other than the creature he’d become - the aimless, angry mercenary who had lost everything.

It had, of course, been impossible to keep his identity a secret. There had been too much footage of him, and it had been barely hours before people began to trace the clues back to him. But though Dimitri was not yet ready to assume his rightful position as the heir to Blaiddyd Industries, he was slowly, carefully feeling out what it might mean. The good he could do, the changes he could make.

He had seen the lower city, the underworld. He knew intimately, now, the desperation and fear that were so easy to fall into when you lost your safety net. Agartha might have been the most obvious villain, but it had not been them alone who’d kept the social order in place.

He could make change, if he was willing to take the throne his father had left behind. He knew that Rodrigue Fraldarius, still CEO of his company, had already reached out. Lacking Dimitri’s contact information, he had gone through Claude, who had simply passed the entire message on to Dimitri and let him decide what to do with it.

He hadn’t decided yet. He had changed so much - was it possible for him to be the person they would want him to be? He wondered what Felix was doing now, or Sylvain, or Ingrid. What they might think of him.

But now he could find out, if he wished. He could find them. He could find out who he was now, and he could discover what change was possible.

And he wouldn’t be alone.

“I heard you’re taking Adrestia in a different direction, too,” Claude said, his smile teasing. “And after our little stunt, who’s going to stop you?” 

She had. After making headlines for her capture of Agartha’s operatives, Edelgard had immediately announced that Adrestia was cutting all their ties, that an investigation would begin in concert with Leicester - and that they two companies together would work to release Lambert’s updated, safe wrist cuff firmware. For free.

Claude had asked Dimitri if that was all right, of course. He’d asked if Dimitri wanted to spearhead it, if he wanted to do this work in his father’s name. But Dimitri knew that Blaiddyd industries had been gutted by Cornelia’s leadership, that they lacked the funding and supply lines for such a project. So instead he had offered his blessing, had issued a statement of his own support.

He would do more someday. He could promise that, whatever form it ended up taking. And he would have help.

“They can try to stop me,” Edelgard said with a pleased little smile. Claude matched that, and to his own surprise, Dimitri found himself smiling too.

The world would change because of them.

Edelgard’s eyes rested on him for a moment. He thought he saw uncertainty there, but she had changed so much. She was so hard to read now. “And… what about you, Dimitri?”

He hadn’t talked about his future with her, or with anyone. Not even Claude, who had not asked when he passed on the message from Rodrigue. But now he looked at Dimitri too, those clever green eyes measuring.

“I’m not sure yet,” Dimitri said. The truth, at least. “But I will fight this battle with you. Afterwards, we will see.”

Edelgard nodded, but there was a pleased tilt to her smile. Claude leaned over, nudging Dimitri’s arm with his elbow. “We can definitely use the help. Couldn’t have done this without you.”

Dimitri nodded. “After all, someone needs to keep Claude alive.”

Edelgard laughed aloud, a startlingly bright sound, and Claude’s jaw dropped. “Hey now! Just because you’ve helped me out a couple of times…”

It was satisfying to see that look on Claude’s face, and Dimitri found himself softening, an effect that Claude tended to have on him. “And I will again, Claude. You ought not to face such dangers alone.”

Claude flushed, deep enough to be visible against his golden skin, and Edelgard’s eyebrows rose. “ _Oh_ ,” she said, looking between them, but did not elaborate. She was smiling. Her wrist cuff - a new design, loaded with the firmware Dimitri’s father had created - beeped. She glanced down at it. “On that note, I’ll leave you two alone. I have a meeting with our new head of finance.”

She stood and inclined her head to the both of them. “Hubert is looking into all of our leads. I’ll have him pass on whatever he can find.”

“And I’ll do the same in return,” Claude said, composure mostly recovered. “See you around, princess.”

She frowned at him, not truly angry, then made her way from the room. Byleth, at the door, followed her out with a brief nod at the two of them.

For a moment, Dimitri wondered about those two. Edelgard’s bodyguard was clever and strong, and had spearheaded the capture of the Agarthan employees who had been at Edelgard’s gala, doing it quickly and efficiently. The woman was impressive, and as alert as she was, a part of her attention always seemed to be on Edelgard. Dimitri didn’t think he was imagining that.

He hoped that Edelgard was happy, and took a moment to feel how remarkable that was. How far he had come, because of them. Because of himself.

Because of Claude, who was still sitting next to him. Dimitri realized that Claude had been watching him for some time. He could not quite read the expression on Claude’s face.

“You look better,” he said. Quiet, just for the two of them. “Less lost.”

Of course Claude had noticed. “I feel less lost. I… have a true purpose, for the first time in a long time.”

Claude smiled at him, and it had less of that teasing charm, more honesty. “I’m glad. And I’m glad you’ll be around for awhile, too. I’ll admit, I was a little worried you’d disappear as soon as this was over.”

“At the beginning, I thought I would.” Dimitri looked away, because gazing at Claude was something of a distraction. “Once there was justice for my family, I thought it was best to go back to the underworld, back to being anonymous. But I’ve changed my mind. I can do more here. It will take some time - I’m not sure how ready I am. But I know that I want to try.” When his eye returned to Claude, he could see that smile again, see a certain softness in Claude’s eyes. He knew he wasn’t imagining it.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay with me until you get access to the Blaiddyd accounts again. You’ll have more than enough for your own place then, but I kind of liked having you around for awhile.” Claude wasn’t moving away. Dimitri wondered if he intended to keep dancing around things forever. It was appealing in its own way, as everything about Claude was, but Dimitri did not wish to waste any more time than he already had.

So long lost in his own anger, his own despair. And now that some light had come back to his life, he could not help wanting to reach out for more.

And so he did. He reached out, caught Claude around the waist, and bent down to kiss him.

Claude froze, his lips unmoving beneath Dimitri’s, but only for a moment. Then he melted, his arms coming up to wrap around Dimitri’s neck, his body pressing close. He was warm, and his lips were just a little chapped, and it was simply, purely perfect. 

When they parted, Claude was flushed, and he smiled up at Dimitri in an entirely different way - caught without defenses, open and sweet.

“I would like to stay with you, if I am welcome,” Dimitri said, keeping a straight face, because he knew that it would make Claude laugh, and it did.

Still laughing, Claude reached out and took his hand. “Then I guess you’d better,” he said, and they were both smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse of a far bigger world... who knows what else is out there (street samurai Felix getting in trouble? useless playboy Sylvain somehow solving mysteries? Rogue AI Sothis?) because I had a lot of ideas I played with incorporating and then set aside because it was already getting too big. This was super fun to write and I really appreciate my artists for being so cool and supportive. ♥♥♥


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